Wraithspeaker
by Krahae
Summary: Death was the first real memory Harry had, thanks to the wizarding world. He would return the favor, one day, as was only proper. After all – their culture was simply too sick to survive. Vastly AU, pre-Yr.1 progressing.
1. Preface

From those familiar with my work, welcome to the obligatory Long Summary and Opening Notes.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, or his universe. Which is good, because I'd burn it down and start over properly.

Notes: Another pre-Hogwarts and proceeding story. This is my addition to the overtly evil overlord Potter pool. It's also... I think a good term would be stress relief. I'm venting a little displaced misanthropy into this work, so I expect updates (after this initial post bomb) to be sporadic, as it crops up and bends me.

Third person, OC's, and a dark Harry primary. Exploring some other topics of the paranormal, but not a crossover.

Outlinkers: No WIP thread for this one. Just me, and my _nothing_. Sorry, no room for you in that, here.


	2. Eyes of Dead Children

–

The Eyes of Dead Children

–

If there had survived, in any appreciable fashion, anyone who remembered Harry Potter before he was struck with the famed curse that forever placed him as a minority of one, they could have testified that there was something vastly wrong with the boy. Oh, he did not suddenly grow scales, or foreboding wings, or a forked tongue, but something fundamental changed. Something possibly important, or potentially trivial. Sadly, no one could stand as such a witness.

Surviving that day was a tricky thing, indeed. Few who lived past the events at Godric's Hollow truly existed as they were before. Remus Lupin and Sirius Black for instance would till their dying day bear the scars of loss, forever changing them. Albus Dumbledore would shed the last vestige of his innocence, condemning a young child to a cold, hateful, unloving world. Tom Riddle would be left little more than an impotent spirit, locked tidally to a plane he could not now escape, and had nothing but fear for the idea of doing so. Harry Potter would sit between two worlds, no longer a child, not an adolescent, not yet an adult. Changed, but invisibly so except to the most prying eye.

In a strict sense, those people living or otherwise who saw the passing of Voldemort and lived were changed, and left behind who they were before in many ways.

Sadly, one of the few remaining Alchemists of the age had lost his passion for the art long ago or he would become terribly nervous, placing the events, even vague, in the terms of that noble skill. Death and change, after all, were empirically similar ideas. No equation sat unchanged with such a variable passed... but change was never its own value. Or was it?

No, it would be a long time before anyone suspected something was very wrong with Harry Potter. Curiously, the Dursleys knew it from day one.

–

"It isn't natural."

Petunia hissed to quiet her husband, lest he gain her curious nephew's attention. Oh, he wasn't curious in the expected way – though she could not deny his inquisitiveness. No, the curiousness she meant was a strangeness, an irregularity, a disturbing air about the child.

He did not whine, or cry, or fuss. He slept, though curiously she could never seem to catch him at it, and for the life of her, she couldn't recall him every being asleep when people were around him. It didn't matter so much, really – she cared for him at the same times as Dudley, and that worked out fine. And, strangest of all really she thought, he _stared_.

Her darling boy didn't train his eyes the way Lily's... _boy_, did. Babies were not meant to latch on with their gaze so steadily, so piercingly. As if they understood what went on around them already. And that color! Her sister had the most sickeningly radiant green eyes, so pretty and noteworthy, that it was always something people commented on. Petunia had met James Potter some time ago, and he had deep, secretive brown eyes, that she was sure hid much mischief.

Their son had eyes that, like Lily's own, were green... but there was something _wrong_ with the color. It made her chest tighten, breathing go painful almost, and head go light if she held his gaze too long. She could tell it bothered Vernon as well, when the man was inclined to deal with him. Whenever he came back from doing so, he always had this far away look about him, a paleness.

And so, they stood and thought and considered, watching over the two boys as they supposedly slept. She knew Harry was awake, however. He never slept when there was someone nearby... "I don't know what to do, Vernon. I can't handle this much longer."

Vernon Dursley was not a stranger to compassion. There was a bounty of love and caring he shared with his family; with his wife, young son, and sister. There was no place in his heart for a penniless drain on their livelihood, a reminder that power of a real kind sometimes had nothing to do with how respectable you were, and last but certainly not least, an unnatural little cur that in-laws, dead or not, expected him to care for. "I know, pet. Perhaps the Orphanage...?"

Shaking her head and looking harried, Petunia wrung at the handkerchief she held. "No, no, no... they'd know, and only bring him back and make us forget. That wretched man of Lily's always threatened such things, and even did it to man who tried to court Lily on our street." And she was sure she could see the glint of twin wicked emeralds in the darkness, watching, judging her.

"Then perhaps..." sputtering a moment, the larger man cleared his throat quietly. "Perhaps the sprog'll have an accident-"

Petunia was many things, and few of them good. She was many things, but she could not hear this, regardless of what the boy was. "Stop, you stop that talk right now. I shan't hear it," and so saying, she sped from the room, looking for all the world like a woman who had seen a ghost.

Turning back to the two cribs, one new and painted with bright colors and with strong bars, the other a rickety old thing that was on a street corner in a rubbish heap, Vernon made a decision. "I won't do it myself, you little parasite. But I'll not stand in the way. I'll not have that damned vile deviltry infecting my home, so you better hope nothing looks out of place. Or I'll change my mind." Speaking more for himself than the child, the portly man turned to leave, content with his threats. "And you better pray things look up. I'll not abide charity that strains my true family."

Later, the man would never find the nerve he almost had that night, to end Harry's life. Later, he would not have the chance to make that decision, because Harry had no need to pray. Harry understood.

–

Harry's first clear memories were of a large man with a wet face and scratchy hair, lifting him from his mother's cold arms. He recalled the ride in the sidecar, the vague impression that another man, smaller, had done the same with him in the past.

He remembered an old man with eyes full of an emotion he wasn't familiar with, because his parents had both been joyous people, he knew and hated that their memories weren't as clear, asking for his forgiveness. "For what I must do... and where you must go, I am truly sorry." And then he spent a number of hours on a cold step, listening to those inside argue on if it would be illegal if he just froze to death out there.

He remembered hate-filled eyes, being handled none to gently by a woman he could have called aunt in another lifetime, but knew only as Petunia now. His memories were clear, crisp, with their words. Their threats, made to a supposedly ignorant child. But he wasn't.

And it drove him mad. He couldn't speak, though he understood how. Couldn't walk, though he remembered it. Could not... could not... shape magic.

Deep inside Harry's mind, things unraveled bit by bit. Things that were once Tom Riddle, but were now Harry Potter. Or would one day be so. Death had stolen part of the man, if not all of him, and because Harry was the conduit of such a fateful event, he was given a gift.

Like a filter, his undeveloped mind strained the experiences from that fragment of self that had been Tom Riddle. Imprinted in him were things that he had no right to, no justification knowing, no thoughts or feelings to tie them to. It was patchy in places, and Harry wouldn't understand for many years how curious it made people that he walked, began speaking, and reading by three, yet he got his name wrong as often as not and was yelled at quite a lot by his relatives for supposedly ignoring them.

By five, Harry was more certainly Harry – that is to say, he was no longer confused. Perhaps the person who was born Harry Potter, who was fated to be live that life had died. There was no way to say for sure, now. Much later in his life he would have suspicions, but they would mean little. As a child however, such thoughts meant nothing, for Harry was Harry, and that was all. Though his memories did little to help him in primary school. He recalled things about such places, but he didn't _know_, and it disturbed him somewhat. Those legacy memories, to anyone who had a sense of self and their own recollections to compare, would have seemed foreign and unusual. For Harry, they simply were and when they failed him, it was frustrating. In time, that too would pass and he would become more acclimatized to not knowing things that were new, rather than stalling as his mind froze up at such rifts in his knowing. Still, he was a quick boy with an agile mind. He would never be called slow, or simple, or held behind for his lack of wit.

His memories, however, didn't fade. All that was there before still remained, and sometimes he said the oddest things. Asking how other children didn't just know, for instance, how to ties shoes. Their Alphabet. Multiplication tables. After a time he began to understand that his memories were an oddity, and he hid them, growing introspective, quiet. Yet those memories, foreign and his own, never faded. He recalled all the hurtful words, the considerations of his death, the sorrowful blue eyes of a man he had no name for, and how that same man had made another steal him from his mother. These were indelible things. Forever things, that were his and his alone.

He was careful, though. More than just knowing, there was cunning within him. A vengeful child of five was nothing against the rage of a thunderous adult like Vernon. And he knew, somehow, that the wizened old man was even more dangerous. He would have time, later, to deal with these people that so casually undid his life. Until then, he would learn, and be the best he could, if only because new things now fascinated him. Things even outside his scope came quickly enough, and it was a joy.

And then, as if the idyllic settling of a curious boy in curious circumstances was an ill-fated thing, _they_ came.

–

One minute the girl was alive and laughing with her friends, the next she was dead. Harry heard the words seizure and stroke bandied about, but he had only a vague idea what they meant. He had a vague memory, an unclear thing, of an older man writhing on the ground, a thin stick pointed at him, as he shook and shivered like his classmate did before her eyes rolled back and she stopped moving forever.

And when she died... there was a thrill, a wash of _something_ that came over him and made Harry bite his lip to avoid making a small, unsettling sound. It was far from unpleasant, but his experience didn't teach him things, that much later in life he'd learn held a more intimate cast.

As he recovered from his own shivering, the girl stood up. But she also lay on the ground... and suddenly Harry knew fear. Her image was indistinct, frayed looking almost, as if she were a picture out of focus. The standing doppelganger did her best to get people's attention, to ask what was going on but of course no one heard her. Then, she saw her own prone form. And _screamed_.

He would remember that sound for the rest of his life. It went on and on, while all around him and the dead girl things began to move, as if in fast motion. Whatever grief held her in place, it also held Harry, as it seemed to make him sluggish and slow, unable to wrench himself from that macabre scene.

Others came, darker, less distinct, less human he realized, though they were once. Taking the newly dead girl by the hand, they pulled her away from her cold body and Harry's ears. His eyes never left her though, and one of the new ones, the older dead he assumed, noticed.

Drifting closer, the small gathering of souls paused, as the girl hiccuped and sobbed quietly. She noticed how Harry watched her, though, and a thrill of hope surged through her. "Y-You can s-see me?"

A mute nod, nothing more.

"Tell them! Tell them I'm not-"

She was cut off by an older woman, pulling her aside and speaking harshly. Cowed, the girl shrunk in on herself, dimming. A man, or rather an image of one, turned back to Harry. "So. You can see us. What a... strange burden."

Harry again nodded, though a sharpness was returning to his eyes. "Why can I see you?"

"I do not know," the man shrugged. "But I know that being one of the living, and yet company to the dead will not be an easy thing. She," indicating the girl who still shot him furtive glances, the man continued, "Is not the first, or last to rail against her fate. Do you understand?"

And Harry did. He wanted no part in being the dead's councilor, or harassed perpetually by them, just because he could see and hear them.

And so Harry changed again, with death.

–

Wraithspeaker

–

"Children of eight and nine should not be so morbid," the librarian thought to herself.

For a handful of hours a day, the young boy in the badly fitting clothes would come in, and settle in his little alcove, reading steadily through books he had no call to be so comfortable with. Really, what child willingly read through dictionaries? Medical journals? Encyclopedia?

Of course that was only the first few weeks, she recalled. Now it seemed the young boy's tastes had become more eclectic. Occult. Now, his arms were more often laden with records of foreign religions, mythology, and death. She would do nothing about it, of course, as it wasn't her place. The youth didn't damage anything – he was a wonderful patron, really – but it just unnerved her for someone so young to have such... dead eyes.

She shivered, recalling her first truly close look at them, the one day she said something to the boy about his choice in reading. The first and last. Those eyes may be dead, but they moved with an furious energy.

Sighing, she shook her head hard. Such musings, about a little boy! Really. Perhaps she needed to get out of the library herself, more.

–

Harry's predicament, that which lead him to trying to absorb a library, rested in those damaged memories. Even the less critical, in his mind, issue of the labels they were whispering around him paled in comparison to that drive. He didn't care about a lack of empathy, his ability to relate to others. He certainly didn't think his sharp wit qualified as a problem, either, but apparently it rated high enough to be mentioned behind closed – mostly – doors. Those things didn't matter, not in the scope of what Harry needed to do. What mattered was that those gaps and holes _itched_, needing to be righted, filled, healed. The problem of course lay between Harry Potter and what he attempted to fill them with.

Square peg, round hole.

Nothing fit. Nothing eased that itch, but he tried regardless. Oh, he found some of what he read fanatically interesting, but he didn't linger. A heading here, a snippet there. He wouldn't read entire encyclopedia, because there was no need, but he did linger on points that interested him. This lead him to the occult, the peculiar, and the unusual. Always at the back of his mind lingered a pulse of desire, of familiarity that rested in two words.

_ Magic. Power._

The closer his reading came to those ideas, the faster his heart would beat. The more he read, the more frustrated he became. "Nothing fits," he hissed angrily, closing a book with perhaps a little too much force.

"What troubles you?"

The ghostly, echoing, half-heard voice didn't startle him so much as set Harry's already frayed nerves on edge. However, he didn't lash out. He'd learned early on that doing so only garnered him odd looks, and the dead only laughed. The only weapons they had were words, and those swords were as immaterial as they were to one another. "I can't find what I'm looking for. Nothing in these books is what I need."

Beside him, the shimmering glint of an eye searched the titles, the open pages he pored over hungrily. "Perhaps I could help..."

Harry knew this game. The dead rarely did anything for free, and he was as rare a commodity as they could ever hope. "What cost?"

"My daughter. She is far from me, too far... I cannot find her. They took her-"

"I'm a little boy," Harry reminded the specter tersely.

Crossly, the apparitions form swelled then shivered. "As you say," it conceded unhappily. "Yet, perhaps... something?"

Sighing and rubbing at his temple, Harry nodded. "If, and only if you can lead me in the right direction. I'll see."

The two stared at one another, one in irritation and a hastily buried hope, the other in open contemplation. "Very well, speaker. My name is Sergei Mikhailovich Morozov... a bit long for your part of the world, perhaps," it was then that Harry placed the dead man's odd intonation, a different kind of flow from what he was used to. Considering the name, he assumed Russian, or something close. "Perhaps you should step outside? This may take a moment."

He had a point. It just wasn't done to have a conversation with nothing in the middle of a library, of all places. Sighing and excusing himself to the librarian, and promising to come back to shelve his books, Harry stepped out the library's back door, into the less populated small greenway that ran behind the structure.

His ghostly companion simply came through the wall, in the way the dead moved. "Alright. So, your daughter...?"

If Sergei had taken offense to his terse tone, he didn't show it, "We were not from this place, this Britain. My daughter... was special. Too special, maybe.

"Men came when she was little. Said things about potential, gifts, responsibilities to mankind. I cared nothing for their grand words," the ghost spat, a darkening of his form spreading from his heart. "I refused. Elena... my Lina, she was so broken though. There were things she needed that I simply could not help with, and it was so hard to hide.

"Eventually we fled. Left behind our home and everything we knew. But they came with us." Harry watched as the dead man's emotions surged through him. Most ghosts, newer ones anyway, were still very raw beings, full of emotion and a need to see some justice, some closure done for them. This much he knew, but what caused _him_ trouble of course was that a very rare few could see or hear ghosts. Those that could were literally overrun with the spirits, who had only their own scope in mind. Until he had controlled his reactions, it was maddening. Every dead soul within miles knew he could sense them, and they ceaselessly came to him. Day and night, all the time. Pushing through walls, screaming when he wouldn't listen, threatening him impotently.

He learned quickly that the dead's problems never ended. If one thing was solved, another would come up. Such is the nature of ended lives, he began to understand. If you could not let go of life, then you would never be free of it, and so you lingered, haunted, until that futility became truth.

"Alright Sergei. I'll listen to you, and do what I can. I'm only eight, though. Don't expect much."

"Anything is better than this eternity of not knowing."

"Tell no others. Or I will not only forget about this Elena, but I'll do my level best to erase any other traces. Do you understand?"

Sergei looked torn, but nodded. "Alright." Sighing wearily, Harry settled in for what promised to be another long, drawn out, soulful tale of woe and loss. Sergei did not disappoint, and it actually turned out that maybe the dead man did have something he wanted.

Elena as it turned out, had something like magic. He couldn't be sure – the books on the occult in the library weren't the best resource after all – as nothing quite fit the way his mind would say was correct, but the devil was in the details or lack thereof. More of those damned square blocks... still. Sergei's descriptions seemed close, if not exact. "So, she can move things, just by thinking?"

Nodding gravely, Sergei seemed to draw in on himself. "I never learned why. Her mother was just a simple woman, like I was just a simple man. Elena though... there was nothing simple about her. Keen like a knife! But so very quiet. Always at your elbow, when you needed her. Such a sweet girl..."

Harry wasn't interested in the 'good daughter' angle. He had been a good boy as well, and look where it got him. Still, this opened up an interesting path. "Do you know how she did what she did?"

Almost immediately Sergei closed down. "No. I know nothing of it."

Damn. "Alright. So, how do you expect me to track or find or... whatever, your daughter?"

"I will show you the things you want. They will help you. And," the ghost paused here, looking distinctly unwilling to say more but continuing. "She still calls for me. I can hear her – I just cannot go so far from where I... died."

Well now. Perhaps this would be better than he'd thought.

–


	3. Impetus

–

Impetus

–

A year passed, and it wasn't being remotely prepared that set Harry on his course. No, that was entirely due to a dead man who seemed to retain all concepts of impatience, incredibly.

"Sergei, you understand that if I can never sleep, it will make me less able to help you?"

The ghost shrugged immaterial shoulders. "Less able, but more willing.

"It has been too long. Her calls grow weaker. You must go now."

Wincing, Harry understood... but he wasn't stalling pointlessly. "You know, those people likely have weapons. Guns, surveillance... I'm not ready-"

"You will be fine," the dead man replied, cutting him off. "You have what you need. Now, you repay me. You do not want her to die, over your hesitation."

Harry did not like the tone of threat in the man's voice, and said so. "Oh, you would rather me haunt you, till I fade? Tell every spirit and worse that you can see, can speak? I may have no weapons, boy, but you have no defense either. I am already dead. How long before you go mad and join us?"

Simple man, indeed, Harry groused to himself with a resigned sigh. It was only a matter of time till one of the dead used that threat, he just hoped it would be later on, once he did have a defense. Sadly, the tiny cache of someone's old school notes and moldy old discarded books told him nothing of such things. Even their description of ghosts seemed wrong, but he didn't have time to linger on that.

His mundane reading had turned up a few interesting things during his cramming. Reincarnation was a topic he lingered on, as something about the idea of retaining a previous life's memories seemed somehow correct to him. It didn't fit perfectly, but it was close enough for government work, as they say. That opened up other channels... however he wasn't quiet so far around the bend as to contact hypnotists, psychics, or regression therapists. Besides, that would cost money... and he had precious little.

There were three things he fixed on, out of all that was mentioned in those sometimes crumbling texts. First off, he managed by luck he knew, to find description of a translation spell. The only problem of course was a lack of wand... which everything seemed to want. That was nominally remedied by him simply getting angry enough one night.

He'd been practicing the banishing spell with a stick, late at night near a local park. Though the Dursleys lost no love over him, they did try to make sure he was 'safely tucked away' most nights. That ended when he learned to palm kitchen knives, and slide the bolt back. Perhaps it was Sergei's insomnia-provoking motivational methods, but Harry's apathy toward the wastes of space known as his relatives had grown sharp and dangerous, with time running out.

A kitchen knife pinning a note to their headboard reading, "I will not be caged," in bold red ended that trend before it started to take hold. Vernon didn't take well to the threat, but Harry let drop that they had to sleep sometime, and did he really want all those lovely rumors about his nephew being roughed up and locked into a small room to get out, among the oh-so pleasant neighbors?

It was a dangerous gamble. His uncle could go either way, but for now, he seemed to go a bit glazed-eyed and nod, muttering. Harry was never locked in again, though other ways things got slightly worse. No matter. More chores was a light price, considering.

His practicing was going nowhere, however. He knew it was the stick, just knew it in a deep, utterly convinced part of himself. Sure, wands were supposed to be more... well _more_, but didn't know the details and went with what he had. To his annoyance, said stick was about as useful as his cousin. Frustrated, angry, lacking sleep and utterly out of patience, Harry threw the stick aside and screamed the incantation, his fists clenched at his sides and eyes screwed shut, "_Impello!_"

A sudden sensation, like a delicate something breaking deep inside him welled up, and before he could focus on the strange familiarity, a sharp impact and blackness washed over him.

Harry woke a few minutes later, with a sore back, head, and arm. "Augh. The hell..."

"Whatever you did, it worked."

Sergei's simple words rattled through his mind for a moment, as the young boy's eyes went wide. "It worked," he asked, rising too quickly and suffering the effects of it immediately. Light headed, winded, and oddly exhausted, he surveyed what his work had rendered.

Not far away, the swing he'd been practicing on gently rocked, and there was some gravel displaced... "What? That's it?"

The ghost's chuckle pulled his attention back to the specter, "You're too young to understand, but maybe I can try.

"Imagine walking up to a city bus, and leaning against it with your elbows bent. Can you picture that?" Harry nodded, his expression easing from a fierce frown. "Very well. Now, you suddenly push against the bus. Which moves?"

"I do," Harry immediately replied, then remembered what happened. "Wait. Why did I go flying back?"

"Look at that swing set's feet. How long has it been here? How many children have enjoyed it? Yet it is still here."

Having an idea what the spirit was meaning for him to find, Harry wasn't disappointed. Each of the thing's feet were anchored in concrete, going he had no idea how deep into the ground and all about as wide as his forearm. "So, this was my bus, then."

Sergei's chuckle was a cold wind, "Yes, so it seems."

Harry's failure suddenly became irrelevant, however. "Wait. I did it! I did it!"

And so Harry's training took a new turn. Like many children of wizards before him, he thought to bend and work around the rules, and like many before him, his success was limited. Harry however had something they didn't... power, and the memories of a man who had also walked this path long ago.

Deep within the Ministry of Magic, the somewhat automated system for detecting underage magic being performed spun to life. A sheet of parchment was enchanted and a rote message was written, then sent off via owl... only for it to return unanswered. In the morning, a disgruntled old woman tired of being called up every three hours for some rich fool's child to whine and beg her parents to buy a pass, would note that the warning had no name. She knew the detection situation in that area was weak, and there were a few possible locations it could have picked up, and sighed.

It would take a month to refine and revamp the devices that worked in that area. Grumbling all the while, the old crone sent in her deposition, before looking over her records to see which little snot-nosed cur would be in with their parents in tow today.

Coincidence would have it that Harry would depart on his self-admitted 'fool venture' the day before Marchbank's new scanning apparatus was set up and set to order. Luckily for her, red tape and bureaucracy by their very nature protected their own, often.

When Harry Potter would go missing, no one would think it was his own actions, without a record of a warning owl to show for it.

–

Jacob's Ladder

–

"_Accio_ wallet."

There were a lot of things distinctly wrong with his logic, but Harry didn't really think he had a lot of options. Sergei had latched onto him as a kind of savior for his daughter, despite being... well. Young. Inexperienced. Unwilling. He could go on, but it was pointless, and any time he asked the damned ghost anything about why him, Sergei just serenely said, "It will work out."

He had to admit though, the ghost was very practical. "So, why not try to get an adult to do this?" Sergei inquired.

"You asked me. How am I supposed to explain – and to who, by the way – your story? 'Oh, a ghost told me about his stolen daughter.'" Harry snorted. "Lot of good I'd do you from an asylum."

The specter glanced at Harry apprasingly as he lifted more wallets. He'd gotten quite good at it, practicing out in London. Whatever route they took, the reality of it was that a child could be an easy target for all kinds of nastiness, something ironically, they were trying to fix. If Harry could take a train, or a series of them, to get closer to where they needed to go, all the better.

Harry could have managed this much better he knew, if he had a wand and a few years of practice behind him. The limits of his magic were the very basics of casting. He could levitate small things briefly, summon and banish if he could see or knew where something was and it wasn't far away, cause a tiny ball of light, and the biggest success of his repertoire, a translation spell. Utterly critical with passing through who-knew-how-many foreign countries.

Any kind of transfiguration was beyond him. Anything needing more control than power sat in that wide category, and it irked him. Who knew how useful that would be? Regardless, this was all he had by way of magic, and it would have to do.

It was not, however, all of his preparations. Sergei was insistent he bring a backpack, with some essentials. He was no magician, not with his few parlor tricks, so a few normal items would be beneficial. A heavy coat, a pack for food that was to be filled later, good shoes, pants and clothes – thanks to practice lifting wallets – a flashlight, and the most useful of Harry's tools, a small utility knife. It was more a multitool, with its odd articulation and pliers, and nearly dozen options. Harry was sure if presented with a practical manual, he could hot-wire a car, rewire a house, filet a fish, and resole some shoes. Not that any of those things seemed needed to find a little girl – he hoped.

Folded up and feeling like a heavy block of metal, the utility knife sat in his pocket, reminding him that this could be much more complicated than he could handle. In fact, likely was. He'd made a promise to Sergei, however, and the dead man lived up to his side of things. It was something utterly freeing to know he could do magic, and so much of his mind lit up at that. Things tumbled over one another to the forefront, each vying to be tried. It was hard, really, attempting so many.

The difference it seemed between wanded and wandless magic, was power and emotion. One fueled the other, and he needed all he could get, with as little experience he had. If he wanted to do something, he had to really need it, to feel it, more than reason it out. This lead to him building up a curious collection of memories.

He'd figured out what worked best for each of his spells. Translation needed a keen focus, but a sense of desperate hopelessness. Discovering that had not been fun... and almost required a visit to a hospital, and a call to poison control. Summoning and banishing were easy, as anger worked well enough, unless he was being delicate, then need was useful. Currently, his need for Channel fare and later, train line tickets worked beautifully.

His tiny ball of light was almost the easiest of all. Fear of the dark, even if he had stifled it long before in his cupboard, could still be harnessed. The emotions weren't said to be needed by the few intact pages of notes and text, but Harry found they helped charge his magic, and focus.

It didn't take long for him to acquire quite the wad of cash, and he finally approached the station at London St. Pancras. Bookbag on his shoulder and ghost in tow, Harry discovered the first problem with his plan.

"Ticket across the Channel, please," he requested, as the attendant at the booth made a great show of standing and peering down to see him around the counter.

Ignoring Harry's darkening expression at her antics, she clucked and shook her head. "What are you, luv, eight? Maybe ten? Sorry little one, have to have an adult with you."

Gritting his teeth, Harry ducked out of line and found a waste bin to vent his frustrations on. Sore foot accomplished, he returned his attention to the train station, and his current dilemma. "So. I need an adult."

Notably, there were plenty around. He just didn't feel the same as the attendant. Then of course he recalled all the people outside, and the many board-holders and the like looking for a fare. Cursing well beyond his years, Harry stomped back outside and scanned the few people looking lost and forlorn, with their cardboard signs.

He'd picked up more than a fare's worth anyway, thinking he could use the excess when he got to France, but if he had to have an adult, then at least he'd have one on his terms. Spotting a relatively harmless looking young woman, maybe in her late teens, he took a moment to observe her.

She looked like a student, if a little unkempt. Not that he could say much – two weeks ago he looked no better than a beggar. Clothes that didn't match local style, dirty blonde hair held up by a few pins, brown eyes and by the smudging of dirt or makeup or both around her eyes, likely sitting out here without sleep for at least a night.

Her board was the usual – marker on cardboard – but it only read "Need help to Calais, perv's move along", which seemed a good start. Walking up, he tapped her on the shoulder, as she was currently yawning and fiddling with the little device that ran to a set of earphones. "Oh! Oh, hello. Sorry, not really in a place to help you," she mumbled sleepily, with a rather thick French lilt to her words.

"Actually I can help you," Harry said quietly, settling against a post nearby. "I need a... sponsor, I suppose."

"Look, I'm sorry but I don't have any-"

"I'm paying," Harry hissed, causing the girl to blink. She tilted her head, hair falling in a tangle to the side. "So. Do you want across the Channel or not?"

The young woman bit her lip, but nodded, taking in the passing crowd. "If you can get me across, I can be your sponsor."

"Good. Follow me then. And get rid of your board."

Three minutes and a quick jump into a public restroom to tidy up later, Harry was back at his least favorite attendant's booth, sponsor in tow. "Two tickets, one adult, one child, please," he intoned in a voice more suited to reading obituary notices.

Tisking and muttering inanely about something he couldn't hear, the woman passed back their passports and tickets. His sponsor's eyes widened slightly as she noted the remaining bills in his wallet, and Harry cursed quietly as he settled it in a front pocket of his jeans. He'd not meant to be so blatant, but whatever. She didn't seem the sort to try and rob him... he hoped.

Tucking his passport into a pocket on his bag, Harry felt a thrill of excitement. He'd shortly be in France, and one step closer to getting rid of Sergei. It didn't hurt this was the first time he'd been on his own, out of Surrey. Coincidence seemed to be favoring him in a few ways, and he was happy for it. Luckily he got his passport two years ago during one of those lost children scares. The school he went to paid the bill from some kind of government fund. Probably had a lot to do with the Channel tunnel itself, and how travel was going to increase. Regardless, he managed to keep it to himself, despite Dudley's petulant whining that he had something resembling his own.

The two settled into one of the first class cabins, Harry having paid the extra couple Pounds to get a decent seat. It wasn't like he couldn't get more money – and that was part of why he was here, regardless. First class passengers, he figured, would have more on them, and then he'd be better set once he got to France. Luckily the continent didn't have such annoying passport requirements. At least not till he was closer to the Soviet Union.

"What are you going to France for?"

Turning his wandering attention back to his temporary companion, Harry shrugged, "Just passing through," he said without much interest, hoping the girl would just be grateful and leave him be.

Undeterred, she leaned on a hand and stared at him, searchingly. "Running away?"

Rolling his eyes, Harry turned to face her properly. "No, though I could. I have something I need to do, so I'm doing it."

Showing a bit of surprise at his heat, and tone, the girl cracked a smile. "Quite the little Captain, aren't you? How old are you – can't be older than ten. What's got to be done, that has you out without a guardian, crossing the Channel?"

Scrubbing a hand through his unruly hair, the young boy closed his eyes and looked skyward, his gaze only meeting glaring white lights. "Why were you stranded in London? You're obviously French or spend a lot of time there – what are you doing out of school? Where are _your_ guardians?" When the girl's face closed down, Harry smirked. "I can play this game too."

He didn't feel bad about dodging the girl's questions the way he did. It wasn't any of her business, and frankly, even this much talking with someone was outside of his comfort zone, regardless what he was currently doing. Whatever it was. Then there was Sergei, and his incessant commentary on how he could at least try and be a little more sociable – she may be helpful later, being a French national.

Not that he could answer the ghost. He really needed to get a cell phone or something so he could justifiably talk to air in public.

"Forget that," he amended to himself. "After this, no more Sergei." With that thought in mind, Harry settled in for a mind-numbing two hours of underwater tunnel with a barely contained, curious, questionable young woman and a dead man for company.

"It could be worse," he mused. "Not that I know how, but I'm sure it could."

–

"You are running away, aren't you?"

Harry checked his watch – seventeen minutes. "Yes. I'm running from my horrible family. They're the scum of the earth. Even mentioning them causes me horrible mental pain. There, satisfied?"

Huffing, the girl pounded on her coat, supposedly to get it into a more comfortable bundle, as she leaned it against the glass so as to stretch out more diagonally. "You're a surly one, aren't you? I'm just curious."

"And I just needed to get across the channel. I didn't pay your way for a minder, gossip, or a substitute guardian," the young boy snapped, his voice low.

"Well you could at least try to be better company!" Discarding all pretense of using her rolled up outerwear as a pillow, she slammed it into her lap. "Why are you so... so... foul?"

Harry opened his mouth, then snapped it shut again. Turning away, he felt his eye tick as Sergei added his two bits, "She isn't a bad person. Perhaps just down on her luck, and she does have a point. Why are you so difficult?"

Just what he needed, a two front war, trapped in a train car. "Look. I'm just trying to do what I need to. I can't, and have no desire to explain myself. You should be glad I'm just a kid. Would you rather deal with some smarmy perv chatting you up for two hours?"

"No," sighing, the girl looked away. "I'm just... well I have a little brother. Given, he's much nicer than you-"

"Good for him."

"-but you remind me of him, for some reason. Probably because I haven't seen him in months," she muttered, fidgeting with her coat again. "You, this... it just makes me wonder if he'd ever do this kind of thing. Why, would he be alright, what would drive him to do it."

Harry tried not to care, not to really listen even, but there were only so many other conversations around, and she was right beside him. It didn't lend well to ignoring someone. "I'm not going to tell you what I'm doing. I'm just another person on a train. You don't know anything about me, don't know who I am, or where I come from. Don't make yourself get involved, when we're just going to go our separate ways come France."

"Yeah," she replied, sounding somewhat defeated. There was a moment's silence, till she murmured quietly, "I can't help worrying. Maybe it's just how I'm put together. If you can't tell me what, why you're doing something... just..."

"Just what?"

Whispering now, Harry could almost hear the quiet worry, displaced, with another face and name, that haunted her. "Lie to me."

Rubbing his temple, Harry debated it. He didn't know her from Eve, but he did pick her up, so it was his problem now. Favor in the form of a ticket or not, she was his problem, and if this solved it, so be it. "Fine. A pretty lie for you then.

"I don't know my parents. They died when I was younger, but I can still recall how they felt. That they loved me. I ended up in an orphanage, on the outskirts of downtown London..."

The tale continued, and it felt... odd, in the telling. Like talking about a dream sometimes. "I never did fit in, but other kids left me alone. Still, despite my few friends, and all the awards I won for my classes, something was missing. So, I decided to look for my family. I mean, I had to have some, somewhere, right? So, I followed some trails, and they lead me to looking somewhere far from where I was."

She watched him spin his shadowed half-lies with wide eyes, part of her wanting to believe it was the truth told flippantly, half wondering what kind of youth would come up with such a tale, just to appease her. "Family? That's a good reason. I can definitely see someone going on a long trip for that, alone."

"I don't have much choice in this, no one would come with me anyway," Harry replied, tongue a bit looser after his tale. "There aren't any records I could find, and all I have to do on are a few hints." Which was true. Sergei being his 'hints' and there was no way anyone with information on Elena was going to give it to a little kid.

Chuckling a bit, she reached up and ruffled his hair, till he swatted her arm away. "Almost tempting to follow you and see how you do."

"Why?" Harry was confused, didn't she ask for lies...? "None of that was-"

"Don't worry about it," she cut him off, leaning back with her eyes closed, an oddly content expression on her face. "You're not the only one without a place to go toward, or head back to. People without destinations. That's us."

Utterly confused, Harry sat back as well, brow furrowed. "People," he decided there and then, "confuse me greatly."

–


	4. Wandering Plague

–

Wandering Plague

–

An hour into their ride, Sergei startled him awake, "Harry. She's restless."

It was all the warning he needed. Snapping his eyes open, and disturbingly, right into her own, the young woman drew back as if struck, her hand that had been straying toward the pocket his wallet rested in snatched back as if burned.

"Somehow, I thought robbing a little kid would have been beneath you." Glaring, the girl huffed and turned away, a high blush on her cheeks for getting caught. "So the little story you wanted, just something to put me at ease? Make me lower my guard?"

"Shut up. You don't know anything."

"I know that what I have is mine, and you've no right to it," Harry pointed out, somewhat hypocritically. Not log ago, even the wallet he carried was someone else's. His need over theirs, however.

Turning to glare openly at him, the girl's mouth drew to a line. "Alright. I'm not proud of it, but I tried. I'm not sorry. I haven't eaten in a day or so, and this... whole thing is just so surreal."

"Aren't you going home?"

A bitter laugh answered the young boy. "Home? What are we? Look at us. You're running – to or away from something, who knows. Me? What, do you want a story now?

"Fine, a story then," the girl began, her accent growing thicker. "A long time ago, in a far away castle, lived a pretty little girl. Then, a terrible sickness came, and put her father in the grave. After that, the little girl stayed with her mother, till a nice gentleman came to know her. He had two children of his own, a boy, and a girl.

"The two girls did not get along at first, but grew to think of one another as sisters. The mother tried to love them all." A note of bitterness crept into her voice, then. "After a while, the older daughter, the one from before, grew ill. Already sickened with grief once, the mother cursed and grew frantic. One day she cornered the new man's daughter, for no reason she could understand. 'It's your fault,' she screamed, and pushed her from her room, striking her with a mirror. 'You did this! You wanted her place!'

"The girl had no idea what she meant. She came with her papa, loved him, loved to see him happy. These people became her family. She'd never had a mother, so the woman who was now screaming at her could have very well been cursing her own blood, with how she was breaking the girl's heart. She didn't understand grief at the time, how it makes people mad.

"But she understood being hurt. Understood unkindness. Rather than stay and be the woman's outlet for her madness, she wrote her father and brother a letter, and left her favorite jewelry box for her sick sister. She left her step-mother the broken handmirror she'd struck her with.

"Then she went away," the girl concluded, eyes closed and a quiet trail of tears streaming down her cheeks. "Not even eighteen years old, and out in the world. She never finished school, and wandered with what money she could find. Then, one day a nice boy promised her something, something grand.

"He said, 'I'll give you a place to be. You'll be welcome there.' Oh, she was welcome. They tried to... hurt her," voice cracking, the young woman turned away, breathing coming in rasps. "Took her money. She was lucky to keep her passport, but her wallet was gone. No way home. No way to find help.

"Then a strange little boy came, with these cold, cold eyes, and told her he would help her. The end."

Harry swallowed, his eyes stinging slightly. "Why didn't you lie?"

"Why did you?"

Shaking his head slightly, Harry kept his gaze on her, "I thought you weren't going home?"

"Not home. That place... will never be home again. I'm going back to my father, and brother," she replied quietly.

Looking away, he took a breath, settling his mind. "I'm... looking for someone."

"Harry, this isn't a good idea-"

"Be still, Sergei," Harry hissed, as the girl's eyes grew wide. "For as long as I can remember, I've remembered more than I should. I was not even two, but I could recall things, with such clarity. For the longest time I though it was normal, you know? How was I to know I was different. We can't see inside one another.

"Then I learned I was different. They called me a genius. A prodigy. But it wasn't... I didn't _learn_, to do those things. I just knew. No one else did, though. What did it mean?" He didn't know why he was telling the lost girl his story. Nothing in him had pushed him to do this before, but... something in her eyes, something he saw in the mirror sometimes seemed to dive into his chest and sink a hook into his words, drawing them up and out against his will.

It left him cold and shivering. "For a while, he felt like someone wearing a suit. Like this wasn't his life. Then it got better. The more holes in those memories, those things he knew that came up, the more he could fill them in himself. So he felt less... wrong.

"He studied. Tried to learn what was wrong with him," he'd never considered it like that before, but truths beget truths and he wasn't the only one raw and undone, there. "Then one day, a girl died. And he saw her. And then he saw her ghost."

If the girl's eyes across from him had been wide before, now they were simply huge. "They came at him all the time after that. You know, because how many people can see, hear them? Imagine you're the only man in a city who can fix cars, yet everyone has one." Wincing, she nodded, before recalling that she didn't believe in ghosts... "He kept looking, for that tiny, single keystone of information that would make everything fit. Make him feel less like a freak.

"Then, he found magic." Looking around, and ignoring Sergei's warnings, Harry opened his palm in the half-lit train car. "_Lumos_," he quietly called, and the magic answered.

A tiny, unsteady, flickering ball of light floated restlessly over his palm. Beside him, uncertain hands reached out, finally poking the tiny glow warily. "It's cool."

"There's no heat," he murmured, letting the glow die out. "Magic. He found his keystone. But he had help, in a dead man who lost his daughter." She drew in a hissed breath, till Harry laughed a little, quietly. "No, not like that. This man's daughter was stolen away. So he made a deal with the boy who saw ghosts, to help him, if he would look for his daughter.

"Then, when he wasn't ready, but needed to go anyway, he found out that the stupid train attendants wouldn't sell him a ticket, because he was too young. So he found an out of luck looking young woman who he didn't think seemed as risky as the other people outside, and said he could help her. Little did he know she never shut up."

Laughing, if her eyes were still wet, the girl swatted at his arm. "You're horrible."

Nodding slightly, Harry grinned crookedly. "Yeah. I am."

Looking around much as he did, she whispered, "If you didn't make that magic firefly, I'd not believe half of that."

"I know. But... why are you going to France?"

Her face clouded a minute, but she took a shaky breath and began to speak, regardless, "I'm worried about papa. Worried he'll do something stupid. Worried about little Alexi – my brother – and I hate myself for it but I'm worried for Helen as well. I'm worried... that I'll never hear my sister's voice again," she murmured, burying her face in her coat. "I miss Cecile so much. And I left her."

Having never had a family that cared about him, Harry began to see why Sergei was so driven, and why he felt so... empty, sometimes. This was what it meant to be a real person. People were meant to have families. Meant to have love, and caring in their lives, not suspicion and fear and hate. It made him uncomfortable and jealous and envious and then just... hurt.

"Shh. Oh, I'm sorry," he was being held, for some reason. He could smell the grime and dirt of sleeping on benches, by the station-side where car exhaust was half the air. He could smell her fear and the slight salt trace of tears, on her hair. And then he realized, they were his own.

It just made more come. Reaching up, he clung to her, as she held him. For a minute, in his mind, she was kind and soft and smelled of warm things and comfort and there was a blur of red hair. And for a moment, his name was Alexi and younger and her little brother.

The moment passed, and they parted. Sniffling and laughing uncomfortably, they settled back in their seats, and Harry made a decision. "You can keep a secret," he said without preamble. Taking out his wallet, Harry set it aside. "I meant to do this anyway, but maybe you can help me a little when we arrive in Calais."

Nodding hesitantly, the young woman watched as Harry spied about them. When a man passed by, he focused on his pockets, and murmured something she couldn't make out.

A wallet appeared on his lap, new and shiny and bulging. "This is how I paid my way."

Laughing, she shook her head. "You're a pickpocket magician?"

"Shh," he hissed with a smile. "Not if you're loud."

A zipping gesture toward her lips and a quick conference later, and they had a plan. Harry summoned wallets and coin purses, as they walked down the alleyway between seats, while she stuffed them from where he passed them under his arm, with hers, into her coat. A quick round between them to the restroom – something both needed – and back to their seats and they had a dozen new wallets to empty. The first set they did so in the privacy of a loo. Harry also took a trash sack, to put all the wallets in later. "I can't use credit cards, and don't want to make them go through too much. We'll drop this off somewhere in Calais station."

"Yes, my little Black Knight," his companion chirped, making them both laugh. Quietly, unseen, unseeable to most, Sergei smiled himself. Who knew Harry would finally find someone worth opening up to, in such a place? Even he didn't know all the boy's story, and it was fascinating and frightening. Did his Elena have such problems? Despite feeling a bit cruel, he hoped Harry was the only one that carried his burdens. No child should feel so alienated, just by being.

Harry asked how much rail fairs ran across the continent, but the girl had no idea. Shrugging, he figured it would be easier to just think of the Channel trip like a ruler, and ask Sergei. "How far is she?"

Sitting beside the strange young boy, a lost little French girl discovered that there were still fairytales in the world, and they found you in the strangest places. As he carried on a conversation with no one quietly, she began to wonder if she too were going mad, but pushed such things away. She was going home. After risking and almost losing so much over childish anger and upset, she was going home... it wasn't the time to question her good fortune.

Going still, Sergei thought as he could, a ghost's odd senses being things he couldn't hope to explain. He felt the tether, growing tight and uncomfortable, of his body and site of death back in London. It felt like a great, tight, hooked rubber band had been strung through his chest.

Opposite, he felt Elena. Again, the feeling was intense, but rather than barbed, this was made of warmth, tempered with worry. Still, it was so stretched, so feeble. And he could tell it was only growing more so, but it was still. Moving as they had, he could gain a better idea of where she was.

And, with a wrench of sorrow, he knew he'd never make it there before his death-chain reeled him back to cursed British soil. Coming out of his contemplation, he sighed. "Far to the east. Much too far..."

Sighing as well, Harry scrubbed a hand through his hair. "Alright, well. I can do this again as I go. We'll split this, and – well, you'll be able to get home right? With that much?"

The girl nodded, smiling faintly. "And then some. You can have some of it-"

Harry shrugged. "I can get more. Take that. I don't have any idea where I'm going, just a direction. So I'll get more as I go."

Sergei did not tell the young man about his suspicions, that he would not be long for this trip. How did he plan to find his Elena, without a guide? He had to try, though – had to. No choice. No choice.

–

Soon the train pulled into its next stop, at Gare de Calais-Fréthun, on the French coast of the Channel. A slight delay as passengers boarded and disembarked let them coordinate, and by the time the train began again, they were still in place, tickets now set for Paris.

Anne, as it turned out his companion's name was, told him that this was the 'wanderer's route', if he intended to head to points in or around Russia which he was tentatively planning on based on Sergei's information. "Most routes go through Paris, or Brussels. This way will hop from Calais, to Paris, to Berlin, then Moscow. I figure that's central enough, but either way, most lines after Berlin can be more specific."

Thinking of Sergei and Russia, Harry turned to the dead man, noting how... washed out he appeared. He had become quiet on the trip abroad, only speaking when absolutely needed. Harry was beginning to wonder if ghosts could get... well, sick. Had he been alive, that would have been his first guess. Shrugging it off for the moment, he turned to other concerns.

They had a little over another hour before arriving in Paris, so he wanted to nap some, now that Anne was no longer a danger to him. Honestly, she never really was... had he just let her take what money he had, then all he'd pocketed since would be his alone, and it wasn't a small sum. The wallets they'd pilfered were safely tucked away behind a trash bin at the courtesy counter back in Calais as well. No need to carry evidence around. Still, it warmed him a bit. He could honestly call Anne a friend, and those... he had very few of. None, if he were to be honest.

She was ahead of him in planning, sleeping soundly as one could with their head leaned against a train window. Being smaller, Harry had no problems getting comfortable by leaning his chair back.

The next thing he was aware of, blearily, was the call in French and English that they were nearing the Gare du Nord, in Paris. Nudging his travel companion, Harry pulled open his backpack and downed some of the bottled water he'd kept aside. A quick tour outside the station would be a good thing, he thought. No telling what kind of food situation he'd find from train to train, or the time to take advantage. Thank you, Sergei.

Anne came awake with a flailing start, scaring him backwards and nearly into the isle till she calmed. "Sorry, sorry... bad dream."

"I'd say so." Offering his water, Harry shrugged. "Usually helps me."

Grinning sheepishly, she took it gratefully. "Me too. Thanks, little Knight."

"Hate that nickname."

Anne laughed, "Well, you're certainly not pleasant enough to be a Shining Prince. So a Black Knight you will be."

Wrinkling his nose, Harry was subjected to another ruffling of his hair. His frown faded. Slightly. "So, where do you go, from here?"

Brow furrowed in thought, Anne tucked a stray hair behind an ear. "Rennes, then home to Baulon." Seeing Harry's blank look she grinned. "West of Paris by about four hours. Opposite direction from where you're going."

Harry's face fell slightly, but he recouped and hid it quickly. "Alright then. I suppose this is goodbye."

Shaking her head, Anne pulled him into a hug, ignoring his suddenly tense posture. "You helped me so much. I don't think I could have gotten here safe, without you." Ruffling his hair again, she grinned, "You're a good person. Just prickly."

Huffing and poking her about the sides, Harry stalled when she pushed a small piece of paper into his hands. "What-"

"Home. Mine. If you can, call ahead. But," shrugging a little, she continued, looking away for a moment. "Father wouldn't... turn you away. If you need somewhere... you know. After."

Harry looked at the scrap of paper, no larger than a business card, with eyes that could not really comprehend what they beheld. "You'd... let me into your home? Willingly?"

Anne shook her head, as if faced with a troubling puzzle. "Yes, you silly boy. This," turning the paper over, she pointed to a long phone number, easily ten digits. "Is the long, international version. See the bracket?" Harry nodded. "From inside France. Can you speak French?"

His lips quirking up, Harry pulled out the tiny pouch he'd hidden in his pocket. From it, he pulled one of a few polished aquarium rocks, and a hollowed out ear plug. Concentrating, he gripped them in his hand and murmured, "_Vertere loquor._"

Pushing the earplug into place, he settled the tiny stone below his tongue. Then, in a passable continental drawl, "_So, how would I do, do you think?_"

Clapping, Anne threw her arms around him and laughed again. "_Such neat tricks! Too bad you cannot teach me,_" she said in her home tongue, with a rich Bretagne accent.

Chuckling, Harry declined to mention he had no idea it would even work, before trying it. Taking off his glasses, he did the same spell, feeling the slight drain of it on his small reserve of stamina. He hoped the charm would last till he was on his way again.

They parted ways at Gare du Nord – North Station – in Paris, as they made separate paths to different trains. Anne was on her way to Rennes shortly after, with cash to spare she assured him, while he figured the general route toward Berlin would work for now. Supposedly, the closer Sergei was to Elena, the better he could guide him. That seemed counter to the specter's inclination, as the ghost was growing wan and dim the further from Britain they traveled. Harry made a point to speak with the ghost once they were ensconced on a train.

As it turned out, service from North Station to Berlin via the TGV was out that day, but the attendant suggested he head to East Station, to inquire with the Deutsche Bahn owned City Night Line. Confused and a bit intrigued, Harry asked directions and was pleasantly surprised that East Station - Gare de l'Est – was less than half an hour away. Harry was quickly forgetting his wariness to travel, when it was clear he could use his little cheats to circumvent the most rocky issues, like reading and speaking the language.

Outside, he stretched and peered about, noting the time. "Only eleven? Not bad. Sergei?"

"Yes, Harry?"

"What's wrong?"

The two, if only one were visible, walked toward the station by following the markers provided. It was a few minutes before his dead companion spoke, however. "I weaken, so far from the place where I died. I had not thought it so... painful."

"That's... not good. How much farther will we need to go?" Harry's question caused the specter to stop, and he could discern the vague shaking of the dead man's head. "What?"

"Much farther. Perhaps... too far."

Harry didn't like the sound of that, and frowned as they completed their trip to East Station. City Night Line was an overnight train, slower than the TGV they'd taken to Paris. Reading over the German brochure, Harry winced. "Almost an eleven hour trip. Sergei..."

"Yes?"

Lips thinning, Harry shook his head. "Nothing. Lets get a ticket."

Rather than taking a single fare, Harry opted to pick up a InterRail pass, figuring it would help to just have that on hand for later station transfers. The brochure he'd picked up showed that the railways covered by Deutsche Bahn ran all over the portion of Europe he wanted, from France to the other side of Germany. Beyond that, it would be a simple matter to take another train whichever direction Sergei indicated, till they found Elena.

Besides, he may want to visit Anne in Baulon later.

The railway was more accommodating than Eurostar, which had required him bring an adult. Perhaps it was also his cunning coming to the fore, as he snatched an unattended travel bag as he went, checking it for passport. Finding one, he purchased a ticket for his guardian, "Wilhem Trovst", and himself for the same double sleeper unit.

He just hoped Wilhem wasn't actually going to Berlin. That would not be a conversation he looked forward to.

The train was scheduled to leave in nine hours, but rather than idle about the station, Harry chose to look around Paris itself. Having never been to a large city, he was a bit overwhelmed by the sheer number of people, places, and things available. It was a rather beautiful city, outside of the metro zones as well.

And, he found, it had rather pretty witches as well.

–


	5. False Vigor

–

False Vigor

–

One of the hidden benefits of having Sergei along as a companion was that he was never really surprised. As long as the dead man was paying attention, Harry didn't have to worry so much about his surroundings, much like the warning on the train.

It seemed, however, that Sergei's own distraction thanks to the distance from Britain and the place of his death, were telling on his attentions. "_What have we here?_"

Harry jolted awake, blinking up at the large and small yellow blobs leaning over him. "Whuh?"

"_Eloquent one,_" the taller of the two muttered, taking a seat on the bench across from the still waking Harry. "_So, why are you sleeping out here, little boy?_"

Taking stock of himself, his missing companion, and the state of the sun, Harry rubbed his eyes behind his glasses. He was lucky that while he slept, he didn't swallow his charmed stone. "_Waiting between trains,_" Harry replied sleepily, making sure all his belongings were in order. He'd not thought to secure them, believing Sergei would alert him if someone got too close but the ghost was curiously absent.

The smaller of the two blonds tilted her head curiously, watching him with the same sky blue eyes as her sister. "_Are you traveling?_"

Regarding the two levelly, Harry took in their appearance... and frowned. Both had on either a local fashion he'd not seen yet, or very odd clothing of a strange cut. Looking around, he noted a few others wearing the same style, if different in detail and trim in places. Nodding, he continued to gather his things, finding nothing missing.

"_Where are you from, little boy?_"

Harry fixed the taller of the two with a flat glare, before letting his lips quirk slightly. "_Baulon. Near Rennes._"

Small Blonde hummed, and shook her head. "_Your accent is Parisian, though._"

"_Yes, little sister, it is._" Tall Blonde commiserated, eying Harry warily. "_Perhaps he is lost?_"

"_Little boy lost?_" The small one chirped in a sing song voice.

Finding the pair's company less than pleasant, Harry stood and settled his pack, looking about for his companion ghost. Seeing only more tourists, travelers, and young people in the same manner of dress as his unpleasant company, he growled out a curse.

He may have found the incredulous expression on Small Blonde's face amusing, if Tall Blonde hadn't hit him on the arm for his coarse language. "_How crude._"

Ignoring her, Harry moved to walk past, only to have the young woman stand in front of him and block his way. "_Excuse me,_" he bit out, eyes narrowed.

"_Sister, even though neither of us are old enough to fully manifest the Allure, don't you find it odd? He doesn't seem to notice at all._"

Nodding and tilting her head, Small Blonde murmured a quiet, "_Not at all._"

"_I notice that you're in my way,_" Harry pointed out, staring up at the slightly older girl with a flat glare. "_I would like it if you moved._"

"_It's not often a man, or boy, manages to ignore us so well. Why is that, I wonder...?_"

Harry was growing weary of the blonde's attitude, and the conspicuous lack of Sergei. He was beginning to feel like the ghost had abandoned him, which meant he would be stuck, or rather, aimless in Paris and the rest of Europe. Such a pair of ideas, on top of his lack of sleep, food, and energy left him cranky and unpleasant tempered. "_Move,_" he asserted again. "_Please._"

It was then he noticed the older girl's hands... and what was in one of them. She noticed his attention as well, along with the hand he dropped, letting a strap of his backpack swing free.

His heart was up in his throat, as a cold hand of panic seized it and tried to pull it free of him. Eyes darting about, Harry, took a step back, letting his bag fall down to a free hand, clasping the straps roughly. Now, it was as much of a weapon as he could make it. Wilhem's bag too rested by his foot, but he didn't think reaching down for it now was prudent. Returning his attention to the puzzled girl, he only murmured a single word, in response. "_Witch_."

The effect was immediate and drastic. Harry of course knew nothing of underage magic laws, or the rarity of his small talents, prodigious as they were. When the older blonde reached out to take his arm, intending he didn't know what, Harry reacted.

"_Impello,_" he hissed out, planting his feet as best he could, fists clenched and eyes narrowed almost to slits.

Around him a small nova of dust flared out, as a pressure wave expanded from him in all directions quickly. Both girl's were caught flat-footed of course, not thinking for a moment that this young foreigner, whom they were happily baiting, was a fellow magical, much less one capable of wandless spells at so young an age. Falling in a tangle of limbs, the two stared up at a pale Harry, who had not looked away. The air from his impromptu spell had disrupted his messy fall of hair, and there for any to see rested the faded but still apparent famous scar, marking him a minority of one. "_Mon Dieu__,_" the older witch murmured, eyes locked on that point on his brow. "_le Survivant._"

Harry kept his feet through strength of will alone. Despite that he could tell that his translation spells were fading, likely disrupted by his sudden outburst of magic. Gone he noted were the mocking, somewhat cocky expressions on the two girls tumbled before him, unsure why that change gave him a moment's satisfaction, as it was replaced with fear for a few moments. What he hadn't noticed were the looks he was getting from practically every magical within line of sight of him – mostly because he didn't know they were.

That attention was normal, after all, when one set off the equivalent of a magical car bomb in their world.

Without a word, Harry gathered up his stolen carry-on bag and reslung his backpack, already walking toward the station. He was tempted mightily to talk with the first two witches – he assumed two, that one was like a tiny clone of the first – but frankly something about them just rubbed him wrong, aside from their mocking and taunting ways. Deciding he'd rather put up with a noisy train station rather than some other possibly problematic attention, Harry marched quickly toward East Station. The park he'd chosen to laze in wasn't far, so he hoped to make it there before his two annoyances caught up.

His luck apparently had been worn out, in getting this far. "_Monseiur Potter,_" a voice, cast low, called behind him. The use of his actual name in such a place stalled him, and he looked back, wide eyed.

A few paces away, the two girls stood behind a taller version of themselves, obviously either their mother or an even older sister. Her own face unreadable. "How... how do you know that name?" Harry asked, once more cursing Sergei for abandoning him. This would never have happened if he were nearby...

Confusion reigned for a moment, as everyone present looked from one to another. It was then that Harry knew his translation spells were gone, and he'd have to recast them to continue this... strangeness.

He had no hope of escaping a fully adult witch, however. Resigned, he pointed to a nearby cafe and stomped off, followed some small distance by a trio of confused and uncertain blonde women that, luckily for him, drew all attention from a young boy who could have garnered a lot more attention otherwise.

He still had hours till the train left, which only made this worse. The damned thing would be departing at eight that night, and the sun was falling, but that only meant his remaining time in Paris was measured in a handful of hours, rather than two. More than enough time for these witches to cause him trouble.

And it annoyed him that he knew they would. Why should running into another magical do that? Why did he use the word witch – fitting or not – rather than a word like Anne had? Why not magician? Again, it was the memories that were not his, unlocking themselves as they were called on.

The four, three children and a confused witch, sat at a table and were stalled by the appearance of a waiter. Harry mimed at his watch, then held up five fingers. Not used to deferring to a child, the man looked to the adult, who only nodded distractedly. Shrugging, the man walked away, planning to return in five minutes.

"How do you... oh bugger it," Harry swore, forgetting his failing spell. Dislodging the tiny aquarium stone from its place, and the earplug and removing his glasses, he clenched them in his hands and breathed deep a few times, gathering himself.

He'd practiced enough to know his stamina was not up to this, but it was important, and he needed to talk to these people. He had more than enough of an emotional current to ride, so the initial power was there... he just lacked the focus for it. Snarling, he wrenched his mind back onto task, a bloom of pain erupting behind his eyes.

"_Vertere loquor!_" He snapped, feeling the power drain out of him like a crushed paper cup hemorrhaging water.

Those women, young and old, at his table stared in shock as the boy, no more than ten, cast a wandless spell again. This one an advanced and somewhat uncommon translator as well, which at least answered a few of the oldest daughter's questions.

"_Mama, is he alright?_"

Her youngest's query had the woman present focus her attention, as it had drifted inward as her mind raced. The topic of those thoughts slumped, eyes glassy and hands letting his few items spill onto the tabletop, by all appearances insensate if awake. "_I am... I have no idea,_" she murmured, blinking in confusion.

Harry felt like he had run a marathon, on no sleep or food for a week, then had his head repeatedly struck like a gong by a large hammer. Suddenly, he was quite glad that his trip to Berlin would be in a bed. "Auuugh," he groaned, righting himself, as those at the table jumped slightly. Shaking off his lethargy as best he could, Harry put the small rock in its safe place, under his tongue and between it and his lower jaw, while fixing his earplug again. Last came his glasses, and the world again began to make sense.

Headache firmly in place, Harry shot a glare at the women across from him. In his faux Parisian accent, he asked, "_Why were you bothering me?_"

To her credit, the oldest daughter flushed crimson suddenly in embarrassment at the boy's accusation. Finding the grace to apologize, she ducked her head and did so, till Harry sighed and turned his head.

Their waiter chose that point to reappear, and Harry picked out a few things that his suddenly ravenous stomach demanded. Apparently his companions for the moment weren't hungry, as the only ordered water or wine, other than the youngest, who managed to talk her mother into a slice of cake.

Once the man was away, the mother turned her eyes to him, not that they had strayed often since they sat. "_Mister Potter? What are you doing in Paris, much less France?_"

"_How do you know my name?_" Harry demanded again, answering her question with one of his own.

Those across from him shared bemused glances. "_What do you... you don't know?!_"

His patience was wearing terribly thin. "_Would I ask if I knew? Tell me,_" the young boy demanded, rising to lean across the table, forgetting he was smaller in every way to just about everyone he was, regardless, intimidating rather well. "_Tell me how you know!_"

"_Everyone knows who you are, Mister Potter,_" the mother answered with a calming hand up, forestalling his anger she hoped. "_Please, sit down. I'll try to explain as obviously we're all working off of mistakes and hasty conclusions here_.

"_First, may I ask what you're doing in Paris? This is some distance from England._"

Sighing and rubbing at the bridge of his nose and temple, Harry shrugged and sipped his water for a moment. If they knew him, it stood to reason they knew where he was from. Supposedly. "_I'm doing a favor to a friend, that has me abroad_."

"_But... you're alone? That's preposterous!_"

Observing the incredulity apparent on the oldest daughter, Harry realized he was at a distinct disadvantage with these women. "_Yet here I am. You all know me. Who are you?_"

Again, there was a round of flushed faces at the breach in etiquette. "_My name is Apolline Delacour. These are my daughters, my oldest here with her school to see some of the more obscure sights, myself and my youngest here as chaperones._"

Tall Blonde named herself, then, "_My name is Fleur._"

"_I'm Gabrielle,_" the smallest of them chimed in, a bright smile thrown in for good measure.

Harry was nonplussed. "_Very well. Now, how do you know me?_"

"_You... truly don't know,_" it wasn't a question, so much as a statement made in shock. "_Then, I suppose it is our tale to tell. Do you have an hour, Mister Potter?_" At Harry's nod, Apolline took up her wine, and drained half the glass in one pull. "_Very well then._

"_Your tale began in 1981, but there were other things that lead up to it. Does the name... er._" Apolline coughed once, and seemed to steel herself. "_The name Voldemort mean anything to you?_"

Harry had the odd experience of having his translation spell spit out two things at once. Confused a moment, he put the translation aside – flight of death? – and focused on Apolline. "_No. I've never heard it._"

"_How... that's not possible. How can you not know of _Him_? There's no way someone could keep that from you, I mean, think!_" Waving her arm about, including themselves, the Delacour woman snorted delicately. "_You cannot go out in public without someone seeing that scar!_"

Confused and wary, Harry shook his head, "_But I haven't heard of him. By chance... is this a magic-thing?_"

Gabrielle giggled for a moment till her mother made a terse cutting motion. "_I am... are you serious? You are implying that you've no idea what I'm talking about. You just referred to the former Dark Lord as a 'magic-thing', and... you've no idea._" Blinking, the woman looked faint for a moment, Fleur fussing over her briefly as she regained her composure. "_I cannot believe it. Muggles! They gave you to muggles didn't they?_"

"_What is a muggle? And what are you talking about? I'm confused._"

Harry's reply sealed her surety. Apolline shooed her daughter's attention away and sat forward. "_Muggles are non-magical folk. We,_" indicating all those at the table, "_Are wizarding folk. You grew up among muggles?_" When Harry nodded, both daughters sat back in shock. "_How very... peculiar. I'm afraid this may take more than the half hour remaining to us, to explain._"

Standing, Harry motioned a waiter over. "_Put our orders in take away boxes,_" turning back to Apolline, who was sitting with her brows raised at Harry's assertive nature, he smiled grimly. "_My train leaves at eight. You have till then. If needed, I'll take another._"

He had no illusions on how upset Sergei would be at their delay, but really, if the ghost didn't want random witches ambushing him, he shouldn't disappear and let them. The dead man really had no one else to blame but himself for this.

–

"_Let me see if I have everything clear,_" Harry asked, taking a moment to check a nearby clock in the hotel lobby they had commandeered. It read half past six, which was fine. He had time. Sergei stood... or floated... nearby, looking more pale and drawn than he'd remembered. Harry had yet to acknowledge the spirit, unsure why the witches with him couldn't see him. Weren't magical people – wizards, regardless of gender, oddly – supposed to be able to see ghosts?

Regardless, he had just heard quite the story, and nothing short of Sergei fetching all the dead in Paris would uproot him, till he was satisfied he understood. "_I was born to a wizard father and witch mother. This Voldemort killed them, and supposedly tried to do the same to me. He used this,_" looking at his notebook, Harry shook his head in bemusement. "_Killing Curse. In capitals. Which apparently never fails, but it did. By some turn of coincidence, he died, I didn't, and I got a scar_." Once his spoon was clean from his soup, Harry tapped his forehead. "_Which is why everyone, as you said, knows me. That about do it?_"

Apolline shook her head slightly. "_You are one of the most famous wizards in Britain. Your features are well known, though your face is a relative unknown. Some claimed you favored your father, and I see that now. After the death of Voldemort, you were lost to the wizarding world. It has been quite the mystery_."

Brow furrowed, Harry made a considering noise. "_So people had seen me before I was 'lost'?_"

"_Most assumed Dumbledore hid you from danger, but then you never resurfaced, so yes, 'lost'. Your likeness is in many of the books about you, though,_" Fleur chimed in, directly before getting swatted by her mother.

"_He has enough to think on already!_" The woman chided, as her oldest tried to recollect her hair into something less like a bird's nest. "_But Fleur is correct. There are a number of biographies and histories, all relating to the defeat of the Dark Lord. Three photos of your family were made public by an anonymous source, and those are used quite often. You must understand,_" the woman pointed out, as Harry tried unsuccessfully to wrap his mind around what was said, his expression vacillating between incredulity, shock, and irritation, "_That was a very dark time for your country. Voldemort was close to destabilizing the Ministry and taking it for himself. _

"_If he had succeeded, soon he would have moved to the continent. His defeat ripped the foundation out from under the madmen that followed him, and let Britain recover. To them, you are somewhat of a hero._" Smiling ruefully, she nudged her youngest daughter, who looked away from Harry for the first time in some minutes with a blush. "_Even here, you have a following_."

"_Le Survivant,_" he recalled, repeating the name he'd been called when his translator failed. The Survivor.

"_Back in your home country, it is most often,_ Boy-Who-Lived."

Wrinkling his nose at the hyphenated name, Harry shook his head. "_How morbid._" Considering his parents were not with him, he counted it doubly so. "_So, I'm a... wizard?_" Apolline nodded. "_Alright. There was another name mentioned earlier. Dumbledore. Who is that?_"

She had to remind herself that this young boy hadn't lived in the wizarding world most of his life. "_Likely one of the most famous wizards alive. He was the... eh. It would take a long time to explain why he is all but revered,_" the woman admitted, looking down contemplatively. "_Ah! Gabrielle has a sweet tooth. Do you have one of his cards in your purse, dear?_"

"_Yes, mama,_" the smallest girl replied, happy to do something to contribute to the conversation. A moment was spent as odd belongings, too many to fit in such a small space, were emptied onto the table. Finally a small bundle of cards was revealed, with moving pictures imprinted on them.

A minute later, Harry was staring at the slightly-aged image of the man who had been there, after his parents died. The man who's face was etched in his memory, with sorrowful yet determined eyes. "_It was him. Why him? Why would he be so interested in me?_"

"_Defeating Voldemort at the age of one is a good start,_" Fleur quipped, earning her a glare from her mother, and an assessing look from Harry. "_He was involved in the war then, as well. Likely he knew your parents._"

"_If that's the case, why would he-_" refusing to air his own sordid history, Harry snapped his mouth shut with a slight snarl. "_Nevermind. I had another question. _

"_Wizards can see ghosts, right? I read something to that effect in some old books I'd found_." He desperately needed to change the topic. All the talk of his being famous, his family, the flood of memories surrounding that night... it left him feeling more hollow and unbalanced than he'd ever remembered. So, on to Sergei, and his problem with the dead. "_Well. There's one right there,_" he pointed to the sedate and apathetic dead man, as the blondes all turned to look, confused. "_You can't see him?_"

Three heads shook. "_Are... are you sure, Harry?_"

The dark haired boy regarded Fleur a moment, before nodding. "_Alright. Something isn't making sense. Tell me about ghosts, then_."

Fleur shrugged, but acquiesced. "_When a wizard or witch dies, and has some great weight on their shoulders, or responsibility or unfinished task, they may linger in the form of a ghost. All magical people, even squibs, can see them_."

Harry stared hard at Sergei, his expression darkening considerably. "Sergei. Were you a wizard?"

"No, Harry. I found those books in the place near where I died, but I've never done magic. Till you began looking for such things, I had no idea what they were. I hoped they'd help you, give you incentive to help Elena, but it was a gamble," the dead man admitted, raising yet another question in Harry's mind.

"Can you talk to magical ghosts, then? Have you seen any?"

"I wouldn't know, if I had. The dead aren't terribly... sociable."

Sighing, Harry leaned back and rubbed at his temple. He was too tired for puzzles. He missed the odd looks the women were giving his one-sided – to their eyes – conversation. "_Sergei wasn't magical. He's not seen, as far as he knows, magical ghosts and neither have I. But I've seen plenty of muggle ones, like him._"

"_Muggles don't leave ghosts,_" came the almost immediate argument from Fleur. "_No one has ever seen one_."

Snorting, Harry closed his eyes. "_Then call me No One from now on. I didn't come to Paris to hunt down a figment's daughter, and I didn't discover moldy old magic books and notebooks out of the blue_."

Apolline started at that, abandoning the argument on ghosts in favor of the real reason Harry Potter was in France. "_Harry. You're in Paris on the request of a _muggle ghost_? Why?_"

Leveling a slight glare at the woman, Harry considered how much more he wanted to give away. They had answered a lot of his questions – despite raising more – so he'd share, perhaps a little more. "_Because he helped me start understanding who I was. Till he showed me those books, I just knew I was different somehow,_" he explained, leaving out his previous patchwork memories. "_With those, I've learned what I know now._"

Thinking to query him on his wandless casting, Apolline was disappointed when Harry stood and looked pointedly at the nearby clock. "_And I have a train to Berlin to catch._"

She almost wanted to detain him. Cite some ploy to keep him there, but instead gave him their floo and physical address. This was followed by a brief explanation of what a floo was, and again she was reminded of how different this Harry Potter was, compared with the image she knew so many had. All but a muggle... what a strange thing.

As the Delacours watched Harry go, Fleur tugged on her mother's sleeve. "_Was it truly him?_"

"_I would like to think not, but yes,_" she admitted, having a thoughtful sigh. "_Certainly not what we expected, no?_"

"_Oh damn!_" Gabrielle cursed, stomping a small foot even as her mother reprimanded her for her language. "_I forgot to get his autograph!_"

Lip quirking, Apolline spied the boy's receipt from the restaurant. "_Well, perhaps so, but..._"

–


	6. The Breach

–

The Breach

–

Harry didn't speak much with Sergei on the way to the 'Perseus', the sleeper train he'd spend the next thirteen hours on. Once on board however, he locked the door and fixed his glare on the dead man. "Where did you go? Thanks to you being gone, I got ambushed by those witches."

If a ghost could sigh, Sergei would have then. "I am... weakening. I simply faded for some time, it seems. Only my resolve to see this through kept me tethered here, to this plane. If we could grow closer to Elena, my ties to her should bolster me, otherwise..."

"Otherwise what?" Harry asked nervously, mood shifting quickly. He didn't want to think about why the ghost's admittance perturbed him so greatly.

Sergei seemed to lessen, slightly. "Otherwise I will lose my anchors here, and pass on."

And leave me alone in this, Harry finished for the spirit, fixing on his anger and anxiety at that only. "Great. We need to find her fast then. I can't do anything to track her on my own."

Through the trip, he slept badly. He dreamed, and woke and dreamed again, but always when waking came he'd check to see if Sergei remained. Faded, less real, he remained, but that state only worsened the further from Britain they went. Harry realized that Elena must be terribly far away, if this were the case. There weren't many minutes to think on such things though, as always the rolling motion of the train lulled him again. And again, he'd dream of the dead, and how those already leaving a body rotting in the ground would decay, when their spirit died as well.

Vision full of the wisping, disintegrating vision of ghost-corpses, and the horrid smell that was as much a sense of hopelessness and cold as the rotting stink of something unearthly thick in his nose, Harry woke with a start as the sun just peeked over the edge of his window.

It was seven in the morning. Soon, he'd be in Berlin.

Sergei looked little better than a smoker's cough. "How long?"

Knowing what the boy meant, Sergei dredged up the strength to answer. "Maybe a day. Probably less. She's still too far."

"Damnit," Harry cursed. "Maybe... maybe someone near here will know something."

With a breathy moan, Sergei tried to collect more of himself, focus, think... anything to make this more bearable. "You don't understand. I had hoped... maybe if you could contact wizards near the place she was kept, maybe they would help you. Now, I wonder."

That made Harry pause. It was new information, and not precisely welcome. "What? I mean... she's a little girl. They can't be keeping her in something like a jail, right?" Sergei remained distinctly silent. "Right? Oh hells. Why didn't you say anything before!?"

"What would you do? We are the only ones who know, now. When I pass, you'll be the last. They made sure of it."

"Who is _they?_ Always _they!_ I need more than that," the youth demanded, crossing his arms where he leaned back against the folding bunks in the train car.

The tale would be told now, Sergei realized, or never at all. "I don't know their true name, only what they do. During the second world war, and the cold war after, the Soviets had supposedly ran a program for gifted people." Harry's eyes narrowed at this, but he recalled that the dead man had said Elena wasn't magical. "Psychic gifts," Sergei finished, sounding pained.

Things began to make sense in rapid fire, within Harry's mind. Brief mentions of such programs were recalled from his occult reading, and then referenced to the agencies that should be related. "KGB? They may be involved? Are you serious?" Harry's voice had gone high and panicked. There was no way he could manage this if it had anything to do with an organized group. A few random people, maybe. He could get help, from people nearby then. This? He scrubbed a hand through his hair angrily.

"I don't know. The ones that wanted Elena... killed me, though," Sergei sadly admitted. "Perhaps it is. They wanted Elena badly. Running was all we could do, but they were always there, waiting, or just behind us."

It stank of government, at least how it acted in movies he'd seen, the conspiracy theories in those books. "Right. Right," shaking his head, Harry slumped onto his bunk.

Killers stealing children for weird research had Elena. Harry had no illusions on being able to handle well prepared and violent adults, with his meager supplies and knowledge. Wizard he may be, but a good one he was not. He was also _a child_. Sergei's hope that he could have recruited help made sense, and he almost wanted to track down a floo and contact the Delacours, but then he recalled the lack of belief they'd replied to his words with. No, they'd not come.

And that, so they say, was that, Harry thought. I know no other magical people. No sooner had he thought this, than the train's announcement system sprang to life and bleated something in a pair of language he didn't understand. "Must be close," Harry muttered, recasting his translation charm.

"Find a hotel for the night," his dead companion whispered. "There is still much to tell."

Wilhem's bag Harry left in the train – nothing of use there – and without a look back, he disembarked to a breaking day in a town he'd never seen before. Station announcements pealed out, telling him that various lines were late or early, and that passengers of this or that train had minutes to arrive at their locations or be left. If anyone found the sight of a young boy traveling alone in Germany odd, they kept such to themselves.

Harry wanted to set up the next portion of his journey, quietly and secretly enjoying all the travel, but recalled Sergei's warning and request. Inquiries were made, and a hotel near the station was located. His funds weren't the best, and he'd likely need to do a bit more cash acquisition before the next train out, but for now they'd do. Food and lodging, and some more for what may come.

Berlin he'd have to explore another day, however. The sun may have risen, but so had the rain clouds, reminding him dully of London's fickle weather. It was colder here, and Harry was grateful for Sergei's suggestion of a heavier coat than he was accustomed to. While he walked, Harry considered the city, and his trip so far in general. One conclusion, that he was surprised he'd not made the day before, was the he was terribly lucky.

There really was nothing useful he knew about the wizarding world. He had those moldering books, but little in them was even readable, much less useful on a day-to-day scale. Even what few spells he could make out either didn't make sense, absolutely refused to function without a wand, or he didn't grasp the fundamental steps leading up to them. Even banishing and summoning had given him problems, and they were referred to as 'simple, yet requiring great focus'. What he needed was a long talk with someone like Apolline, but with Sergei fading... it would have to wait.

A small smile quirked Harry's lips. "Well," he mused to no one in particular. "In a way, you definitely repaid me." He'd thought the books were the big payoff from the ghost's favor in the beginning, but now he found even more out there waiting for him. If the witches were to be believed, then a whole society waited for him, a far cry from what he'd suspected in the beginning.

Now all he had to do was earn that payment.

The hotel's room could have been the brother to his sleeper cabin in the train, in spirit. Small, nearly enough to be called cramped, spartan and set in colors that would hide age well. To Harry's eye, it was a perfectly good room, considering what he was used to. Observations aside, he had an ailing ghost to speak with, and less time with each minute to do so. The room would do.

"Alright, Sergei. Here we are."

Dead eyes fixed on him, as the ghost hesitated for a few moments. "The rest, or rather beginning of my tale will take a small while. Everything begins back before Elena was born.

"I met her mother, working as I did as a farmer, when she came into a local pub. She was a worker for one of the plants, near Prypiat, come into town for some reason or another. It turned out her company was there to pick up not just supplies, but workers as well. It was good money, and I wasn't a man with roots. I left for Prypiat.

"Life was good. We grew close in time – I was persistent in my youth – and eventually we married. With the work done, we moved back and I took up working metal. It was hard, but rewarding work. She was by my side, always. Our little girl Elena had a hard birth, though.

"It was my fault, really," the dead man murmured, his voice faded. "I lived too far out. Insisting we move away from Prypiat. If we were closer, there'd be hospitals. I lost her, but kept Elena."

There was a pause in the tale, as Harry got a glass of water. "She was perhaps eight. I tried to keep the stories down, but I had to have sitters. She would move things, say things... and she was a unique girl. It scared so many, later on that I had to take up farming again, just to get by. She was always helping though. Tying so hard. I think she knew.

"Then the men came," Sergei rumbled. "In their suits, with their promises. I hid her, and she was a good girl. They said they'd come back that night, when the sitter returned. When they left, we ran.

"They were always behind us. Men in glasses, with their small radios, their shiny cars," the hatred was clear in the specter's voice, and Harry felt another thrill of anxiety. It certainly sounded like these men were beyond him. It wouldn't be anything he could handle. "Eventually we arrived in London, and I hoped. Not here, I would think. Not in the middle of this country, they'd not be so daring."

The ghost sighed. "They dared. Knowing she would be helpless, they struck out at me, killing me. It was easy then. Elena was broken with grief and fear. And I was dead. I despaired of ever finding a way to help her till you, but then you are young as well, and not well connected. Still, I had to try."

Harry's hand clenched slightly. "If I had more time, I could learn more. I don't think-"

"You cannot strike out at them, like this," Sergei interrupted. "Just a boy. What can you do against men with guns and radios? They'd kill you without a thought, and then where would my Elena be? No. You'll need a plan. But first, you must find her."

Nodding, the young boy laid back on the room's bed, noticing the spirit's change in speech. It was no longer 'we', now, but 'you'. "And that's the problem, isn't it? You're fading."

Sergei drifted nearby. "Yes. I won't make it far enough to be helpful. Worse... I worry that this has all been for nothing. At least, if I were to have stayed in Britain, I could feel her. Now... now I may pass and not know her fate. If she lives, if she'll ever know freedom again."

Harry didn't know what to say. More than that, he didn't know if he should say anything. Sergei's reasons and his own were vastly different for coming this far, and despite Anne's joking name for him, he wasn't a noble sort. Elena's father sought her out because of love. He did it for greed, for himself... and despite having come into this with his eyes open, fully aware of that, it still made him feel... dirty. More so when he considered that Sergei literally put his soul in his hands, for his help.

Not for the first time, Harry cursed his odd talent. It was obvious with how the Delacours spoke that one day he'd have been sought out as a wizard by the rest of his supposed 'people'. Did he have to be so impetuous? So grasping for things? Harry knew the answer already though. It was part of his nature, to look up and reach for those things he could see above him. It was every human's nature, really, and it just so happened that what he grasped for, set him apart.

If it wasn't Sergei, then likely it would have been another.

"Alright. For now then, I think we should get our bearings. We've been traveling east since Paris, so we must be closer," despite the hardships and impending loss of his constant companion, Harry worked to focus on his goal. He could do nothing else, really. "Where should we go, now?"

Noting the boy's reluctance to speak of his second demise, Sergei simply mimicked his focus. "East. Ever east. The bond with Elena is stronger, but that which binds me to my death rips more of me away the further I go."

Making a frustrated noise, Harry dropped his glass onto the bedside desk with a clatter. "How much further?"

"If I were to guess... we are one third of the way there, from Paris."

Almost nine-hundred kilometers... and only one third there. "God," Harry swore, falling back onto his bed. "So far."

Harry's thoughts eventually drifted till he slept, despite the long night asleep on the train. As he dreamed, he seemed to relive Sergei's life as a spectator. He saw Elena's mother, a blonde woman who would have been pretty if not for the hard lines etched into her face from years of work. Opposite her, Sergei was a joyous if determined young man, laughing often, with an open love for the world around him.

He watched as Elena was born, quiet and without fuss. As he watched the memory, Harry was disturbed... the baby watched him, in return. No one else saw him, spoke to him. With a flash of insight, he understood what it was like, for those thousands of muggle ghosts to be tied to this world. Impotent, silent, forgotten.

From that point forward, it always seemed that at some time in the memories, Elena would turn her dark eyes his way, and just watch him for a time. She was a curious girl, with hair so fine and pale it was nearly white. In time, it truly did take on that color, countering eyes so dark they resembled nothing else but the night sky. Sitters would not linger, few would take more than a single day with the girl, despite how well-behaved she was. And Elena was a very good girl, always trying to help Sergei with his tasks, always a hand here when needed.

Harry watched, silent bystander, as the girl grew from a baby to a young woman his own age. And then he watched her run.

"You can do this, where I cannot, Harry. Forgive me... I am sorry." The images blurred, mingled. For a moment it was Dumbledore above him again, the icy blue of his eyes holding more determination than true sorrow. The next, it was Sergei, a misty form barely containing edges now, other than eyes that seemed pinpricks of starlight.

And then air refused to heed his lungs, and the world stopped, even in dreams.

–

Sineater

–

Waking was an experience in pain, uncomfortableness, and confusion. His eyes were crusty and felt glued shut, his body was weak and sore, and there was... a pain, a feeling of tightness in his chest. Hand flailing out without direction, Harry struck the wall and groaned. "Wha... oh, what hit me...?"

Slowly coming back to the waking world, Harry scratched at his side idly, below his arm. There was an itch there that just seemed to not go away. "Sergei?"

Small flashes of memory darted through his mind, leaving behind them spots and star-bursts in his vision. Balance failing, Harry fell but not before barking his shin on the nearby desk. "_Chto za hu-_"

His mouth snapped shut. "Why do I know Russian?" Checking his ears and for the small stone he kept under his tongue when awake, Harry paled. "Why do I know Russian," he murmured again, wincing as more memories flitted through his mind. These weren't his, weren't normal. Why did he know what Elena looked like? Why did he remember... Paling dramatically, Harry blinked out the small window, seeing it was far past late afternoon. "I'll never look at women the same," he lamented quietly, despite the slight blush that rose on his face.

Lightly touching the odd itch below his arm, Harry winced. Memory of a loud bang, feeling like something... _wrong_ and invading had suddenly happened to him, shortness of breath and a dizzying fall... "What did you do to me, Sergei?"

The empty hotel room wouldn't answer him, and neither would his absent companion spirit. Harry tried not to think about it, tried not to think at all, but there was no peace for him. Every time his mind went silent, and it seemed like he'd be able to focus, to recollect, that nagging pull at his center wrenched at him, playing earthquake to his calm.

Harry simply refused to think about what logic told him this meant. Instead he packed his meager belongings, almost idly recast his translation spells, and set off for the station. The sooner he finished this damned errand, the sooner he could... he could....

The young boy stopped in his tracks, blinking at the door leading out to the streets beyond, and the waiting Berlin skyline. "What do I want, after this?" He asked no one in particular.

He knew now that nothing would be the same. There was no way he could deal with the Durlseys and their lies, now. Or, God forbid, Marge. One word about the parents that died trying to protect him from some insane wizard, and he was likely to try those fire spells, wand or no. Of course, there was that too, he knew. Being a wizard wasn't something he wanted to hide. Magic was a part of him – he had no desire to put it aside, to ignore it. Certainly the Dursleys wouldn't tolerate his peculiarity.

Outside the hotel, the air smelled of wet concrete, rain, and city. Cars and people milled about, the afternoon hazing above him through the still-present clouds. It would continue raining for a day or two a part of him, new and unsettled, let him know. Wincing visibly, Harry ignored it, and marched briskly to the train station, and the next leg of his journey.

The sleeper car had been an interesting experience, but he didn't want to waste time, now. Hoping for another TGV line like the one he'd taken from the UK to Paris, Harry was disappointed to find only slower trains like the one he'd just recently taken, running the route from Berlin toward his goal. Resigned, he scanned a map, and decided to forgo his shorter steps from before.

"Ticket to Moscow, please," he informed the attendant, who gave him a slight raise of a brow, but shrugged and took his money regardless. More passport stamps and he was given directions and a timetable – thirty hours till Moscow.

He hoped that once he got that far within Russian borders, Elena would be easy to track down. Perhaps he'd even overshoot her location. There was a vain hope that maybe she'd have been in Germany, but Harry knew now that it was wrong. Elena would be in Russia.

In an effort to conserve his money and avoid too many strange looks, Harry took a normal seat on the line to Moscow, figuring a young boy traveling alone would be strange enough, but first class would be too much.

–

Forty or so kilometers outside of Moscow, according to the signs he was seeing, Harry felt the tension anchored to his chest suddenly and rapidly switch direction. He was so surprised by the change in sensation that he pointlessly grabbed at nothing, thinking to take hold of the tether somehow and reorient it, despite ignoring it stubbornly for almost a day.

Once the shock of what had happened passed, he laughed, then kept laughing till another passenger asked him, in no polite words, to shut up so he could sleep.

When the man was finally snoring again, Harry gleefully lifted his wallet. Served him right.

Moscow station was huge and had some lovely architecture and Harry could really care less. Finding a nearby tourist shop, he picked up a few things he lacked and went about inquiring about a train and destination to the southwest. Talking with an off-duty cab driver, and using a map he bought, Harry came to the conclusion that Elena was being held somewhere in or near Obninsk, about one-hundred kilometers southwest of Moscow by rail. Thanking the man profusely, Harry found the rail line he needed, and took a seat on board with barely contained excitement.

His trip would soon be over!

Obninsk was a strange city, as far as Harry had experienced them. Rather than being built around some industry, at least in the modern times, it boasted to being home for a number of research and scientific facilities. In many ways, it was a college town, without students. Science, in a way, was the industry of Obninsk.

Considering what Sergei had told him before his disappearance, it seemed perfect. That single thought brought to mind what Harry had been burying, stifling for so many hours, and with a flood the memories came again, only this time more vividly. He barely had time to take a seat on a nearby station bench before his vision whited out to the background noise of those recollections.

This time, however, they were not Sergei's.

–


	7. Wake

–

Wake

–

He was too short, Harry thought idly through the drugs searing along his veins. That burning should bother him... but it didn't. Being hauled around like a sack, thrown into his room, fed via a tube roughly shoved down his throat... none of it could pierce the hazy contentment the drug settled into him. Too short, too thin...

It was necessary, he knew. A year ago, he brought the ceiling down on top of Them. They didn't like that. It was their own fault, however – They should not have tampered with his head like They did. Now, he couldn't control things so well.

So They controlled him, instead.

He could feel Father, so, so far away. And so dim. Like he was barely there... but he was. Father would come.

Father would come.

Father would come, and kill them all for what they've done.

...

"We will continue to push you, Lina, till you just do as we ask."

Harry didn't know why they called him that. Only Father was allowed. Still, it was his own fault. He'd slipped – and now they knew he could read them, like little books. He missed reading... stinging tears pricked at his eyes, and he couldn't even reach up to wipe them away, hands tied behind the chair. It was after they did... that... to him. He wanted to reach up, and feel that he had hair again, that his scalp really didn't part with a wet sound like paper tearing before-

"LINA!" His attention snapped up to the man, and the table between them fell with a heavy clatter from where it had floated seconds before. "Focus. I want you to tell me what I'm thinking."

But he didn't want to Look. He hated it. Hated seeing what they thought of him. What they knew. But they would only keep on, new men would come, new voices, new demands. They would not let him sleep until he Read them. So he Looked.

It was like losing focus on someone's face. Let them blur. Let them dissolve to an indistinct haze, but it wasn't losing focus, but sharpening it. That gave him an idea... but not yet. Instead he read the sign that the man was holding up, so he couldn't see it. "Apple."

He saw the door codes. Seven-five-seven-three-two-nine. Saw they also needed a card. "Tree."

He saw that the man liked his work. Liked making little children cry – and more, the little boys. This didn't worry Harry, though. "Building."

"Tower," the man corrected. He saw it was a building, but that they wanted to guide the Looking. Thinking of guiding let him See the way the place they were in was built. Doors. Corridors. Halls. Signs. So many things to see-

"Lina," the man had grown impatient of waiting. "What does the sign show?" It was a boy. Something ticked at his memory. It was just a drawing, but something overshadowed it. He saw black hair, messy, over green, dead eyes. He smiled, staring at the man as he shifted, looking toward the door behind him. "Lina? What do you see?"

He knew what the man was growing nervous of. Knew that his own eyes had dilated, or appeared to, till all the brown in them was swallowed up and all that was left were white-rimmed black marbles. "I see death," he said quietly, before sharpening his focus _hard_-

Men burst into the room, as the man with the signs fell over, bleeding out of his eyes and ears. Harry smiled slightly, till the sticks with the sparking ends stabbed at him, and sent him into the blackness of sleep.

...

It was so hard to think. The medicine made it hard to focus-

"Tell me your full name."

He couldn't. Didn't they understand?!

A small shock caused a small cry to break free of his throat. Blood followed, after, a reminder that caused his eyes to water in rage and hurt and sorrow. "Focus, Lina. Tell me your name."

Eyes going black, he stared at the man. "_Hate-you-hate-you-kill-you-kill-you-all-hat-_"

Another shock broke his focus. "Good. But I don't care about your fantasies. Tell me your full name, Lina."

His mouth still bled. Despite what they tried to do to fix it, his attempts to scream at them made the raw wound where his tongue had been bleed. It made him sick, swallowing all the blood, but he'd give them no more. No more! They took that so he'd speak like he Saw. He just knew some day they'd take his eyes, like they did his tongue. So he fought, to keep himself. Fought even though they'd take anyway-

"Lina, focus. Tell me your name."

"_Kill-you-killyouall-burnthisplace-killyouKillyour-wifeandburnyourchildr-_"

Another shock broke his focus, again. "Lina, focus," the man stated again, mechanically. He wondered sometimes if these people were human, but refused to Look anymore. All he saw was blood and hurting and things they hated, now. He was there, always. Always he was at the front of their minds – their amazing project! He _hated_. Hated so much.

He didn't want Father to come anymore. He couldn't even call for him, now. Couldn't say his name.

More tears slid down his cheeks, and Harry ignored the shocks till they made his skin burn and left him twitching faintly after. "Lina, focus," again, the man said. "Tell me your name."

"_Deathdeathdeathdeath-_"

Shock after shock, but he screamed. Screamed in their minds, as far, as many as he could, till they came and sent him into the black again.

...

He was close.

The one who was with Father, before Father left him to care for her.

He didn't know him. It didn't matter. He was close.

Focusing, more than he had for a long, long time, he pushed the drugs aside. Images. Buildings. Turns. People. When. Numbers. Lockers. Cell.

He gave it all to him.

She gave it all to him.

"_I am Elena Sergeiyevna Morozova,_" she Told him. The first, only time she'd actually done so, willingly. "_I am Elena Sergeiyevna Morozova. I am Elena Sergeiyevna Morozova..._"

–

Harry woke, and promptly turned so that he could empty his stomach onto the ground near the bench. "God," he rasped, recalling all the things that he'd gone through – that Elena had gone through, and he had seen, felt through her. He'd never wanted to hurt someone so badly before, to know he was responsible for their pain and suffering and feel satisfaction at it till then.

He didn't regret the urge, at all.

Gathering his bookbag, Harry set off for the northern block of buildings, about a kilometer north. There was a girl he'd been too long in coming to see, and he meant to fix that, as soon as he could.

"_You are here?_"

Stalling between steps, Harry let a slight frown cross his features. His thoughts turned to the images he'd recalled, thanks to the dreams... A small girl, with dark, dark eyes, and almost snowy hair-

"_Me, was me..._"

Picking his pace back up, the young boy was on his way again. Putting a lot of effort into it, he thought back to the girl who spoke in his head, "I'm here. I'll be there soon."

"_Father is gone. He gave me to you._"

It was as much an answer as Harry knew already. He knew what the link he felt was, from the time Sergei explained it. Knew that those dreams weren't dreams, but memories... again, ill-fitting and threatening to break his sense of self.

Somehow, he had... absorbed, Sergei Morozov. The idea chilled him, almost sent him back into a black place for his mind to think and collect, if not for a less-than-gentle pull from his daughter, "_No. Nononono. This is what he wanted I can tell so please don't leave now don't leave me now don't leave me-_"

"Alright," he said as well as thought, and the girl went silent. It seemed he'd have another companion soon that he spoke to that wasn't even there, a cynical voice in the back of his mind pointed out. "Well, that's what I'm here to fix," he reminded it, before groaning.

"Great, now I'm talking to myself."

–

He wondered, as he ducked low and listened for Elena's next instruction, why she hadn't escaped herself, if she knew all the ways into and out of the research center?

Her answer was remarkably simple. "_They time drugs so I am only able to think, to do things for them, for very small windows. I am already drugged again when I wake – it just takes time to affect me._"

Camera sweeps, holes in a fence that a repair man had decided to selectively forget about, thinking he'd rather go drinking, which halls were watched when... it was all fed to him, and despite the impossibility of it all, Harry Potter had managed to sneak into a heavily guarded bunker complex, without drawing attention to himself.

"_Next hallway, left. Then the lockers, and hurry. I'm feeling it again..._"

With a start, Harry realized the meaning behind her words. She was in one of those windows now, and was on her way down into the foggy depths of drugged oblivion soon. "No, no! Elena, stay with me... stay with me!" His thoughts seemed to bolster her a bit, but he had to get back out of this place as well... and without her, it wasn't going to be possible. "Uh. Medicine to reverse that. Where?"

Harry found the lockers she'd told him of, and the loose one without a lock. Inside, a man's smock sat, with a key card hanging off a hook. Snatching it up, he looped it around his wrist. As he raided another open one, he found something that at once gave him hope and terrified him.

There, hanging off a hook like the smock and key, rested a leather shoulder harness with the underarm sheathe for a gun. A gun which still rested inside it.

He didn't think, but took it. Fumbling with it a moment, he found and locked the safety. As he did so, Elena fed him another route, to the labs. An image of a small refrigerator, a row of syringes above it, a small bottle of saline, and finally the needle stabbing into a vein flooded his mind. No words followed them, however. "Damnit, hang on..."

There weren't any illusions in his mind about what the gun meant. Harry had seen a handful men with assault rifles as he slipped inside this place, unseen, but if the gun meant he could stop one, then he'd hope one was all he needed to stop. And he only hoped for one. There was no way to learn and become proficient in the weapon in so short a time as to be really useful with it, after all.

More images, this time leading to the cell Elena inhabited. Another code, another visual 'mumble' of her being secured to a steel bed, that was in turn welded into the floor and wall. "Elevator at end of hall, turn left – take stairs," he muttered, following an invisible line, painted in his mind's eye. "Wait for the small click-" the camera outside the door had a bad motor, and would hang, pointing the wrong way for about fifteen seconds every so often. "Then run to the end of the hall. Knock on the third door going by."

Harry's subvocalizing cut off, as he slammed his hand into the door as he went, then skidded across and down the next corner. Behind him, he could hear a man's loud voice asking who had pranked him, and if they really valued their jobs or not. The noise from that man's raised voice covered the noise of his passing well though, as the next portion was down a grated hallway that he had no hope of crossing without sound.

Despite Elena's instructions, Harry paused at the end of the stairs at the end of the hall. "Daylight? What?" Peering out of one of the windows set in the wall beside the door, he boggled.

Outside of the door stretched a courtyard, maybe as big as the one his school had. For a moment Harry's incredulity drowned out the urging voice of Elena in his mind, as he looked out at the space he'd need to travel inside the installation, without cover or any way to block view of himself. Worse, he could see three men in massive white suits doing something to the left, resulting in massive gouts of smoke and light. "No way. I can't go out there, they'll see me," voice cast low, he continued to watch the men as they worked, finally making out what they were doing.

_Flamethrowers_. They were using flamethrowers to set fire to what looked like a very large patch of vegetation. If anything, that only made Harry hesitate more. "If they see me, they'll kill me. There's no way I should be this far inside-"

Elena's voice, weak and sleepy sounding, cut through his frightened murmurs, "_They do this for an hour a day, once Yulia arrives back in her cell. You have half an hour left till she falls asleep..._"

Again Harry looked outside, the orange and red of the spat fire reflecting off the brick and mortar walls on that side of the courtyard. For the first time since he began Sergei's errand, Harry felt small, unsure. Like a child. "You're sure?"

Comforting images came to him, but they were colored, broken. Elena's attempt to make him feel better almost brought bile up in Harry's mouth. "All the things you've dealt with at these people's hands, and I'm the one getting scared." Setting his jaw, the young boy let his fingers brush the pistol jostling around in his pocket. He didn't pull it out.

The door opened silently, and there were no alarms, no flashing lights. Sounds of wood burning and cracking filled the courtyard, and the men there were busy either burning or moving the still-smoking pieces of wood away from that one area. Even as he watched from the corner of his eye, skirting along the side under a row of high windows, Harry could see that more vegetation tried to grow, to spread over a concrete pad that stretched some distance from the wall. Trees sprang up only to be charred and curled. Grasses tried to dig cracks in the pad, as roots worked to grow large enough to upset it, letting fresh ground be exposed. Even flowers grew quickly, in the space of seconds, trying to scatter seeds so that they could spread and grow beyond that scorched slab.

A thought occurred to Harry, and he looked around himself. There, off in a corner and ignored in the tangle of weeds some distance away from the men, a lone sunflower sat in the late stages of its seeding. It looked almost morose, with the great crown bent, facing the earth so that its seeds could fall. As he padded by quietly, Harry scraped his hand down the thing's face, pocketing the handful of small kernels. As an afterthought he filled a pocket with dirt, opposite them.

As Elena had assured him, Harry passed through the other door without notice, without alarm. It was only one hall and a doorway then, till he was there. "I'm coming," he murmured, speeding down past a security check that no one was at for five minutes, while paperwork was filled out. There was no need to be so wary once the day's tests were over – everyone was back in their cells, drugged.

The impossibility of a little boy running unchecked toward the heavy security ward wasn't even taken into consideration. Why would it be?

"Here," Harry panted, skidding to a trembling halt outside of a cell. "Room 402." Elena had been silent for a while, and that worried him, but the ribbon pulling at his chest was stronger than ever, an almost mirror to the young girl's heartbeat. The security code was entered and the card slid, and for a terrible moment he thought nothing would happen, then-

Click.

Black space between the door and wall. Pushing it open quickly, Harry took off his shoe, setting it in the door's way. He then scampered over the darkened interior, till his shin barked against something cold and solid. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could make out Elena, sleeping soundly under a threadbare blanket even more ratty than those back at the Dursley's. Manacles kept her hands locked at her sides, long, angry welts stretching some distance from her wrists speaking of how long they'd been in place. A patchwork of scars littered her arms, and to his disgust, there was what looked like an IV patch that was never removed. He knew from her memories it was so their veins wouldn't fail, from abuse. Better one appliance, than the risk of a 'test' going wrong.

She was so thin, he noted angrily. He could clearly see her ribs under the light gown she wore, the angles of her elbows and knees too obvious. Elena's face was still the same, if thinner, older looking with its lack of extra curve from childhood youth. Almost idly Harry compared her to her mother, and smiled grimly. Taking a moment, he checked to see if he could open the manacles and shackles, but they were keyed, and he lacked anything of the sort. Cursing, thinking he forgot something, he did the only thing he could.

Pulling the stimulants and the needle from his pack, Harry used that cursed appliance to get the drug into her bloodstream. Little more than a minute later he watched her eyes flutter, then open in a sudden start. "Shh," he murmured, a finger to her pale lips. "It's Harry."

"_Harry? Oh... Harry! You're here-_"

"Elena," he interrupted her bubbling happiness with a wince. "I can't get the manacles off."

Blinking at him, she looked down and frowned. "_Oh. Oh, that's alright,_" she seemed to murmur into his mind, black eyes going distant and unfocused, and Harry thought of his shoe, sitting out in the hallway, easy to see. Thought about people coming and hurting them both, but then Elena's hand took his. "_It's alright. Everything will be easier, now._"

Looking down, he boggled at her free arm. "Wha-"

A rending sound, like a hundred tin cans being twisted and torn quietly echoed about the room, as her other manacle peeled back, layer after layer of folded metal. It was almost pretty to watch. "_We need to go soon,_" she Sent. "_They are almost done burning Yulia's pets_."

"So she can control them?"

He watched a brief memory, of a blonde girl causing a tree to grow, then rip itself free of the ground and shamble for a few steps. "_She is like... ah. Yes. That would be the best way to think of it,_" Elena answered, sounding uncertain. Harry shrugged, and thought of his pockets, of the seeds and soil. "_Oh. Oh my... so we get her too?_"

"Can we... can we let everyone out?"

Elena's head ducked down, as she staggered upright. It was like watching a puppet, as she used her mind to keep herself standing, jostling herself this way and that bonelessly. He hated them more, every moment. She couldn't even stand on her own, without those abilities now. "_They won't all make it. If they're seen... they will be killed._"

And he could hear _them_, too. Harry had been ignoring it as best he could, but this place was teeming with the spirits of dead children. He could not take notice, though. It would be guaranteed madness to let so many know he could sense them. So many riddled with their pained deaths. Despite it, they at least couldn't be hurt anymore... they at least were through being torn apart, piece by piece, by men tho didn't deserve to live. "How? How can I open the doors?"

Elena's eyes closed for a moment, then opened, wide and black. "_The main power switch, one room behind the security desk. There will be guards. The alarms will be sounded._"

"Then we will have guards and alarms. I can't let this go on," Harry decided, putting his winter coat around her shoulders, and his light shoes on her too-small feet. "Lets get Yulia."

"_Ok, Harry._"

The flower girl, as he started thinking of her, had a room just five rooms down and a hall bend from Elena's. It was here they ran into their first problem. "_No, there is a guard outside her door, still. We have to-_"

Harry's hand dropped to his pocket, and he clicked the safety off the pistol. In his mind, he felt the biting of a saw on the back of his own skull. The bruises, welts and open sores from years of wearing metal manacles. The never ending itch of the IV tube, forever leaking poison into his veins. The knife, cutting out his tongue so they could force him to speak into their minds.

All for damned human curiosity. "Help me aim."

"..." Elena's silent sending, worry and a quiet acknowledgment were all he needed.

Rounding the corner, he saw the man first, and raised the gun toward him. It was the motion, caught from the corner of his eye, that put the man on guard. "Who is th-"

CRACK.

Harry wondered who _didn't_ hear that. The recoil was muted, but still jerked his too-small arm back sharply. Elena had no idea what a gun would do, so rather than cushion the kick, she pointed it so Harry wouldn't miss. Harry ignored the sharp pain in his wrist, watching the spray of blood from the guard's head fountain across the hallway.

He didn't have time to be think about it. "Door code?"

Elena punched it in, as he kicked the man's legs clear so the door would open, trying not to see the confused, blackened, panicking ghost that ripped itself free of the man's body. Pocketing the pistol again, Harry took his handfuls of gifts and turned to meet Yulia.

The girl that turned sleepily to look at them wasn't what he'd expected. "Oh God," spinning back around, Harry's already empty stomach tried to purge itself again at what he'd seen.

Yulia was another of the place's high security projects. Like Elena, they had obviously tried to accelerate her progress by... limiting her. For a brief, selfish moment, Harry was glad they hadn't progressed as far with Sergei's daughter. The sleepy blonde girl, who's hair was just a bit longer than Elena's, looked at them, blinking her red-irised eyes slowly. "Who are you?" She murmured, turning as she could to see them. The stark narrowness that her silhouette showed emphasized what those that oversaw them had done. Yulia had no need for manacles... because they had taken her arms.

As Elena moved to unmake the girl's shackles, Harry fished in his bag for the stimulant. "I'm Harry. This is Elena. We're going to help you."

Blinking, the girl looked down, head tilted. "Help?" Her eyes then snapped to the small mess Harry had made with the dropped seeds and soil, pupils narrowing to points. "Yes. Yes, I see..."

Yulia, he would learn later from Elena, could control plants. Or, according to the blonde, they _liked_ her, spoke to her. It was a two-way street, much like his own problem, however. Each time the complex had their post-test burning outside her room, she could hear the plants screaming, dying, trying to reach her, then suffering for it. It was how she described it, at any rate. They did it without her asking. And over the years, it had twisted something inside Yulia, until it broke.

Elena never spoke of being afraid of anything, after escaping. Other than Yulia.

The blonde looked to be maybe a year older than Harry and Elena, maybe more. It was hard to tell – all three of them had not had good childhoods, and it marked each in different ways. Though, for a grim moment, Harry realized of the three of them, his was the best, the least cruel. It wasn't something he'd ever thought to encounter. "Can you walk?"

From Elena's side, Yulia leaned, teetering till the paler girl took hold of the blonde with her mind. "Yes. Let me go to them..."

They both knew what she wanted, and lead Yulia to the small scattering of soil and seeds. "Not enough... not enough..." tears fell from red eyes, till she shook her head hard and noticed the faint spray of red outside the door. Peeking around, Yulia's manner changed from sorrow to barely-masked mania in an instant. "Can you help?"

Harry came to her side, nervous at how excited the odd girl was. "How? What can I do?"

"The bad man... put the little ones on him. Put the dirt and the little ones on him, or better, _in him_."

Blanching, Harry swallowed his gorge again. Still. These were the people who did this to them. Who... cuts off a child's arms, just to see how they adapt with the gifts they were given? What justification was there? That in mind, Harry took a handful of seeds and dirt, and shoved it into the dead man's mouth.

He would never tell Yulia, for as long as he knew her, but he agreed with Elena.

Humming quietly, the blonde leaned over and smiled at the dead man. Or, rather, Harry assumed she was smiling at her 'little ones'. "Do you know what she's doing?" He asked Elena, who had turned away, watching the hallway.

Though she herself had killed, and done so while connected with the mind of the man who'd died, Elena was still a little girl, tired, hurt, and not fully herself from the drugs. That all considered, she seemed sickly when answering, "_Yes. You may not want to look._"

Despite the warning, Harry watched the blonde. He'd done so for Elena, in her memories, and they had thrown their lot in with this strange girl, one way or another. He'd watch here, too.

The dead man's body shriveled quickly, graying, the skin tightening on flesh that lost its bulk quickly. From his mouth, sprouts rose with unnatural quickness, feeding on the man's water and the nutrients of his body. Two distinct stalks rose up, pulsing and fattening in contrast to the corpse, which just became more and more desiccated as they grew. After the brittle cracking of bones sounded from the former guard's body, the two unusual sunflower stalks bloomed, but their faces weren't right.

"You all try so hard," Yulia murmured, leaning close and nuzzling the flowers with her cheek, despite the revealed spikes of twisted, sharp-looking wood within them. "So many of you die just to try and reach me, every time. Why do you keep on? Why do you?

"Do you love me so much?" The flowers seemed to nod, curling almost serpentine as they followed her motions. "You drive me mad, with all your screams," the blonde murmured, voice darkening. "But its all I can hear, beyond those walls. Beyond this place. Help me leave? My friends, my new friends brought you here. Lets help them too?"

It was strange, watching someone else do what he so often did, Harry thought. But then, there wasn't proof that those he spoke to could hear. Yulia's plants on the other hand, seemed to hear her just fine.

Harry just wasn't sure he wanted to hear what they said, in response.

"Alright then," the girl smiled, closing her eyes. "Come to me."

Like striking snakes, the two stalks coiled, then sprang, the vicious, barbed spikes within their crowns sinking deep into Yulia's shoulders, the angry scars where arms should be.

It was only Elena's hand on his own shoulder that kept Harry from bolting, then and there. "_She is fine. For some reason to her... this is... pleasant._"

Incredulous, Harry watched the slow, stifled trickle of blood on either side of Yulia's gown seep into its cloth. He watched it soak into the coarse fibers, dye them vermilion, spread from thread to thread. "You... this place," shaking his head hard, Harry's magic spilled out for a moment, causing the tiles beneath him to crack. "It's _their_ fault.

"Their fault," he murmured again, feeling something else, along with his rage and the slip-sliding of his mind, trying to at once take in, accept, but recoil from the things he knew, the things he had seen. Like Yulia's blood, it slipped and spread and weaved between the fabric.

Elena and Yulia weren't even the worst of those that has suffered here.

It wasn't like he could stop the children from crying.

All their dead eyes.

Accusing eyes.

Staring at him.

Through him.

"All of it," he whispered, as the dead took notice and looked at him. Hundreds of unblinking eyes went still. Expectant. "All of them.

"They all have to die."

–


	8. Weighing Hearts

–

Weighing Hearts

–

Elena watched as Harry practically floated, feet light and quiet, in contrast with his mind. She dared no look there, right now.

A glimpse nearly unhinged her, at what he saw, despite the horror she knew. Unless she pried, looked into each mind within this place and forced herself to go mad, she would never see what he did.

Within him, he held all those from before. All the dead. She shivered, looking away.

Instead, she helped Yulia as she walked unbalanced, unused to the weight where her arms had been, returning. Though, it was hard to think of them as arms...

The two 'sunflowers' had buried their wicked tines into her body, the crown's flower petals curling against her bare skin to hide the truth. Below them, the stalks rested like mockeries of limbs. As they walked, Yulia continued to hum her little tune, while the odd plants leeched from her, and the air. The blonde had drank all the water Harry had, and eaten any spare soil, seeds and food that was in his pack to accommodate her 'friends'.

There was a moment she'd eyed the dead guard hungrily, before blushing and turning back to them. Shrugging, she'd moved away, albeit slowly.

Those plants continued to grow, fill out. Where the roots had been, bloody and wicked as they tore free from the nearly mummified corpse, almost skeletal fingers twitched, moving in an odd cadence. Above them, starting from the shoulders and cascading down, the gnarled and tough looking stems, nearly as wide as Elena's wrist, bloomed and unfurled leaves that then curled back around the stem tightly. Within minutes, Yulia's arms looked almost proper – if you could overlook the material they were made from.

Harry walked, his mouth and voice a constant stream of names, tumbling from lips that never stopped. Upon reaching Elena's abandoned cell, he turned, green eyes clearing for a moment. "I think... I think I can do something. With the switches. How are you?"

"_Worried. You're... are you alright?_"

He shrugged off her concern, something, someone... he wasn't sure, telling him he'd never really been 'alright'. "I'll manage," the young boy murmured quietly.

They made an odd sight, all but appearing out of nowhere in front of the main security desk for that wing. Elena, pale and looking ethereal with her washed out hair and black eyes, Yulia with her bloody hands and arms that looked in no way human, humming quietly, and finally Harry, who's hair covered his own eyes, but who wore a strangely serene smile, when he wasn't muttering to some unseen listener.

The clerk, a hard-faced, middle aged woman blinked at them for a moment, before slamming her hand down on the desk, missing the alarm button by some large distance. Instead, Elena made sure she found the note-skewer, black eyes locked on those of the pained woman. Slowly, her expression evened out, and then washed away. Blood still dripped from her hand, as she ripped it free of the metal spike and the now-stained notes below, but she showed no reaction. Slowly, jerkily, she rose and pulled the release panel switch by the door, letting it swing open toward the children.

Harry slipped inside, holding the door for his companions. Yulia smiled at him, trailing a root-finger across his cheek. Once they were inside, the young boy met the woman's eyes, and she jerked awake, out of the grip of Elena's mind. Stumbling, Harry watched dispassionately as the woman fell like a puppet without strings. Sergei's daughter touched his mind, saw what he'd seen, done. Without accusation, only a statement of what had happened, she commented silently, "_You pulled her apart_."

"She was the one who recorded Yulia's arms being taken," he replied coldly. Somewhere behind those dead eyes, the woman's spirit screeched, as hundreds of dead children tore at her, turned their searing eyes on her then. There was no bulletproof glass to hide behind here. No drugs, to keep them calm and pliable. No restraints, or heavy doors, or threats left.

Only them. And her.

The next door needed a key, but Elena was more than sufficient, though it drained her badly to pull such a heavy thing off reinforced hinges. Yulia repaid her earlier kindness, helping to keep the wavering girl upright, her hands remarkably soft now with a covering of young, green leaves.

Harry knew that neither girl was able to unmake the facility's primary circuit, not how they needed to, anyway. It was a large panel, with massive wires running into it from the floor, where they ran up from underground. Almost, he wondered if Yulia would be able to call up a tree or something, but decided against it.

This was his to do. He and the teeming dead, who each burned brightly for just a moment inside him, before winking out like dying stars.

They would pass on, to whatever beyond welcomed them. There was a fervent hope in Harry's heart it was a better place than they had seen, one where they could actually be children. As they blinked out, clasped around what he only guessed was his own spirit, Harry felt the swell of their lives, memories, feelings, hopes, dreams, loss... and this time it didn't break him.

Drawing on that, Harry focused. He bent that power around him, let it coil and swirl. Behind him, Yulia felt the hairs on her neck, the delicate things that whispered to her and played in her blood now murmuring. Helping Elena, she moved toward the door they'd entered from, as the tempest swirled around the young boy.

Dead children gave him everything they had, memory and what was the collected experience of their lives, so that he could live on, for them. Each tiny star winked out with a final smile, a sigh, sometimes a 'thank you'. And with each one that did so, in that vast, yawning, frigid nothing that grew inside Harry Potter, magic crackled and swelled. As the last left him, a little boy who hadn't lived a week here before sorrow claimed him, Harry let it go.

Thunder cracked and rolled across the floor, preceded by an arc of light and force that neither girl could claim to know where it originated. One side was Harry, the other was the massive circuit box that fed the damned machine of death above them. And then everything went white.

Elena's eyes weren't used to the light yet, the sedatives and stimulants in her fighting one another for dominance. Later, she would recall all the lights in that small room exploding, as electricity arced blue-white across exposed metal that had just recently been encased in glass. Above her, minds from all over the complex stilled then took fright as electric things burst, exploded, arced and killed, or simply showered the rooms they rested in with bright white death.

The children's vengeance begun, Harry slumped and fell. Barely any better, Elena cursed, kneeling beside him, trying to shake him awake. Despite agreeing with him about freeing the others, she had no desire to be here, in the middle of the madness that would ensue when others like her and Yulia, powerful in their pain, took up the fight. Beside her, the blonde helped to lift him up, the two girls weak from their long stay but managing between them and their gifts, the slight weight of Harry Potter.

"Not like them either, is he?"

Black eyes turned to her companion, and she shook her head slowly, reaching out to lightly brush Yulia's mind in reply, "_No. You have your plants. Harry has the dead._"

Head tilting, her hair framing a curious face, Yulia smiled. "Who do you have?"

Turning away, Elena sighed. "_I'm not quite like that. But for now, I suppose I have you two._"

Chuckling, before returning to her tuneless humming, Yulia nodded in time with her song. "Is that so...? I suppose it is."

–

Pandemonium reigned in the courtyard, as the released children railed against the scattered an unprepared defense of the institution's security. Nowhere in their preparations was there a contingency for all the subjects getting free, or freeing one another. Redundant power and generators wouldn't allow it. Fail-safes on the doors would lock, when power was cut.

Obviously, something had gone wrong. Not only were there dozens of children who could each wreak havoc in some way or another running amok, but a massive power surge had just run through the entire compound, leaving behind charred corpses, badly burned survivors, and disabled machinery left and right.

The most heavily felt loss, for those trying to contain the rapidly advancing children, was the armory. Whatever bad luck had struck them did so like a hammer from God. Locked up on the main floor away from potential escapees, the armory housed all the firearms, gas, and protective equipment not actively in use by security staff. In times of emergency, everyone would arm themselves from there, and work to contain the escaped subject, or subjects.

Would, but for the fact the armory was on fire, and impossible to approach, with expiring and exploding ordinance causing nearly as much mayhem as the horde of children that welled up and into the facility. Because of that, they were almost defenseless against the hateful children bearing down on them.

Things went from bad to worse for those that meant to keep them there, once Yulia's feet touched the earth outside in the courtyard. "Sun... I missed the sun." Elena had regained some of her strength, and held Harry, who was still out cold. The girl watched as the blonde raised her new hands, eyes closed and a smile across her lips. "We'll be kind. We'll let them stay in the sun."

At the last murmur of her voice, roots and vines burst out of the ground across the courtyard, barring the now-retreating facility workers from escaping. Those that were too close got caught up as well, and Elena watched in morbid unblinking curiosity as those plants ripped limbs with delicate slowness from screaming adults. "We'll let them stay in the sun," Yulia said again, her voice a sing-song lilt as she closed in and helped with Harry again.

Unconcerned at her companion's brutality, Elena only worried for children who got close, but it was obvious that Yulia's plants were harmless to them. Everywhere a child passed, limbs and flowers bowed, ducked, parted. For her part, Elena scanned and picked at the minds around them for things she needed. Harshly. More than once someone cried out as their mind felt suddenly gripped in a vise, pried into with cold, uncaring hands, leaving them easy prey. Crouching down near a still whining man who had been run through by something that looked like fresh bones, she fished out a set of keys.

Then she reached out, and twisted the man's head around. "_Monsters_," she mouthed silently, moving back to help Yulia with Harry.

Anytime the pale haired girl felt like one of the adults was about to hurt or kill, she would reach out and bend their vision, turn their hands, sometimes outright kill as well. She wished her strength was with her, but rather than bemoan for what-ifs, Elena did what she could. Between them, she and Yulia were the most focused, and sadly the most talented there.

Most of the trapped children were little more than raw, unformed talents, without any hope of harnessing their abilities like the facility had hoped to do. That, apparently, was aside from the point. Such a large population let them explore, experiment. Perhaps things they learned from her were used to 'better' them? The thought made her sick.

One of the caretakers, frantic, pulled the gun and hose from a downed suit-wearing man. It was one of those men Harry had seen, burning Yulia's plants. Nearby, a boy cocked his head when the woman pulled the trigger.

The flame didn't obey her, whipping back and around into a tight ball, charring her to ash with a stuttered scream. A muffled thump followed as the pack the dead man wore exploded, but the boy just narrowed his eyes, thin trickles of blood dripping from his nose. Where he looked, flame and cataclysm followed, a sinuous phantom from hell.

Perhaps they'd learn from this. Learn not to use the pain of children to try and better themselves. Shaking her head, Elena moved them on. There was a car outside that would get them away from here, before the really bad people came.

Through it all, Yulia hummed and spun around as she walked, when Elena took over holding Harry up. It would have disturbed her, if Elena didn't also feel like shouting for joy, knowing soon they'd be free of this place.

–

Elena didn't like driving, but she was the only one who could. Or, rather, only one that could steal the knowledge and use it. In the passenger seat, Harry lay slumped and still unconscious, while in the truck's bed, Yulia sang and coaxed the plants and trees they passed to reach out and let her touch them.

That of course didn't help with their escape and keeping it quiet, but it did keep Yulia from doing something... stranger.

Beside her, nearly an hour's drive from Obninsk, Harry began to stir. "Lina?"

She brushed her mind against his, "_Yes, Harry? We made it._"

Sitting up slowly, the young boy looked around, seeing the road passing by. "You can drive?" Befuddled, he yawned, looked behind them at Yulia who waved back with her new arms. "So. I didn't dream it all?"

"_No. Some of the children died, escaping, but the place is gone_."

"Good." Harry pulled his knees up, resting his chin on them as he watched the scenery go by them. Occasionally, a tree would get too close, and he'd flinch but that was the only reaction Elena saw from him, for some time.

Night was coming and some hours stretched between them in silence, when he spoke again. "Where will you go?"

"_With you_." Elena knew Harry was haunted, in more ways than she could likely understand without looking into his mind, but let him have his silence. She needed some as well, to think on her father... think on what it meant to be who she was. What she was, out in this hateful world.

Blinking a moment, Harry turned to regard the daughter of the ghost that had kept him company for the last year. The tether Sergei left was fading, slowly breaking now that he knew that she was safe, but Harry was hesitant to push her away. There were a hundred reasons to do so, not the least of which being he was no older than her – both of them being children. There was no way he could take her with him... where? Would he return to the Dursleys, where a meddling old man had left him to be forgotten? To the people who were cruel, and made him remember the dead of Obninsk?

Still, for at least a year now he'd had to deal with Sergei's reminders, his worries, stories... and now his memories. "Alright," he answered finally, turning back to the road.

Elena was relieved, but she'd expected him to reply as he did. Drifting through his memories, she let a faint smile play along her lips. "_Thank you, Black Knight._"

Frowning, Harry groused, "I'm seriously going to hurt Anne for that."

Thoughts of Anne brought his earlier concerns to mind, "Where will we go? And is Yulia going with us?"

Shrugging slightly, Elena let her brows furrow. "_Talk to her, when we stop for the night. We'll see if she wants to follow._"

"Hard thing to ask," Harry pointed out as they took an exit toward a distant stand of trees. "I don't even know where she'd be following me to."

The answer to that question became very simple, in the days to come.

–

With the lack of traffic and Elena, Harry didn't worry so much on being tracked by anyone interested in what happened in Obninsk. He was curious what kind of people were involved in the studies there, because if they were like him, he knew they'd begin again. After all, it wasn't like he'd idly give up magic, just because the Dursleys had threatened him so many times about being unnatural, or freakish.

Parked near the stand of trees they'd seen from a distance, the three children finally paused, and caught their breath. "_It's really over_." Elena's silent Sending whispered against both Harry and Yulia's mind, and they nodded.

"I guess the question now it, what next?" Elena of course knew what Harry meant, but Yulia voiced her confusion. "Well. Where do we go? I can't go back where I came from – don't want to either – and Elena has no where to go really. Do you have family, waiting somewhere?"

The blonde seemed to consider that a moment, before shaking her head. "No. Not now. Home for now will be where I make it. Where that is..." shrugging, she sat and coaxed small, soft grasses up from the ground. "I'll know when I get there."

A part of Harry agreed with those words. "I have... people. Like me to find. I know of some now, but," shaking his head slowly, the young boy slumped down, banging his head on the old truck that had seen them out of Obninsk. "I don't know. I don't have any money, and I can't keep on with what I've been doing. Someone will catch me."

Catching Harry's eye, Elena asked a simple question – could she see his trip? At his nod, she skimmed through memory, catching small things he seemed to have missed or overlooked at the time. "_Harry. Those... witches, the Delacours said you were famous. That your family were wizards._"

"Right. I remember. Still, what good does that do me?"

Sitting between Yulia and the dark haired boy, she made the last point in a triangle. "_I know from when my father ran away with me, that people make wills. They leave things in banks. It seemed like these wizards have their own hidden world. Would those things be there, rather than in ours?_"

It was a simple thing, but it may make all the difference. "Maybe. I should get in touch with them again." Pulling off his backpack, he searched for the notebook he'd taken down information in, during his lunch before leaving for Berlin. "They gave me some addresses for floos in Berlin and Paris. I should be able to get back to Germany without a problem, and contact them."

"_I will not stay behind._"

Brow furrowing slightly, Harry nodded. "I know. Yulia?"

Distracted from her petting of a small flower, the other girl looked up, "Hmm? Oh. I'll follow. I'll know where I'm going once I get there."

Nodding, plan beginning to solidify in his mind, Harry took out a pen, and made notes. "Alright. We start out tomorrow, north," taking out his map, he picked out a train station outside Moscow that the Express stopped at. "We'll get on here for Berlin.

"Once there, we'll contact the Delacours. I'll figure out my options from there. If all else fails?" Grinning, he looked to his companions with a glint in his eye. "We rob a bank. They'll never suspect children."

"_I'm not sure I want to celebrate my freedom by being shot at again,_" Elena replied dryly, causing Harry to chuckle.

Yulia just hummed, shrugging. "Whatever it takes to get home."

"I really don't think it'll come to that," Harry pointed out, laying back on the soft grass the blonde girl coaxed up for them. "We'll know more in a day, though."

The old truck between them and the road, and tall trees to block out the night, the three children slept, as the last of the day passed. Tomorrow, they'd begin their future.

–


	9. Horsemen

–

Horsemen

–

Money wasn't the problem, of course. "Do you like this one?"

It was clothes. Harry had been so out of sorts from the memories and things that had happened the previous day, that small things had escaped him. There was no way he could get Yulia and Elena on a train, in their bloody gowns. Burning a bit of his remaining money, he picked up a simple outfit for both, and hoped it would do till he had better resources. With so few people in the small town they stopped in, it would be far too noticeable if a lot of people were suddenly missing their wallets and money.

To further complicate things, Yulia didn't like sleeves. This was problematic, as Yulia had... plant arms. "You know, people are going to ask. We have to cover them somehow."

"You don't like them? I tried to make them soft..."

Harry sighed, seeing the blonde girl's forlorn expression. "They're very nice, Yulia," to prove his point, he ran a hand along the leaves that formed her skin there, causing her frown to lessen. "But other people will wonder. I'll try something else," he decided eventually.

Elena, on the other hand, was rather happy with her simple white dress and wide-brimmed, soft hat. Her eyes never fully adjusted to light well, and daylight was painful, so the hat was much appreciated, even if the whole outfit made her look very... delicate.

They finally settled on a sleeveless top for Yulia, and a dress in a checker pattern that matched the red of her eyes. He wondered if that was natural or a result of the facility, but didn't ask. It was still too raw in their minds. To cover her arms, he picked up a half-cape mantle that was in fashion that season, that came down to one's elbows. All Yulia had to do, was cross her arms, and they were well concealed.

More or less prepared, they boarded a few dozen kilometers east of Moscow, with Elena befuddling or confusing the few inquiries that were made for passports. It taxed her to do so, being much different than simply seeing or speaking to another, but there was no way she could keep driving them, and as little chance of getting passports. Harry played his part by picking more pockets discreetly, and to their surprise, Yulia sold flowers while they both worked on various tasks.

Harry wondered why she wouldn't let him smell the arrangements she'd coaxed into bloom, but considering the glint in Elena's eye and slight smirk, there was a good reason. Considering Yulia's thinly veiled hatred of all things human, something they'd slowly began to discover over the trip, neither child wanted to push too hard.

Nor could they really argue. Elena's trust extended to the two who had come with her, and what little faith Harry had held in humanity had been obliterated by what he saw in Obninsk. He couldn't let it be 'just' the people in the facility. Each of them went home, had lives of their own, tried to live like anyone else. He knew that. Maybe they even had children of their own. Each of them likely just considered it a job, something they did for some hours a day, and put aside after.

Most jobs, however, don't involve torturing small children, and killing them when they're no longer useful for you, however. It was that very thing, that he knew those people tried to make it just a job that broke his already tenuous faith.

That place could have just as easily been in France. Britain. Germany. Those dead children who's lives he now bore had names from all around. It wasn't just a strange collection of amazing children from Russia. He didn't understand how that could be – wouldn't those other countries understand what was happening, somehow? Was it so... accepted for children to just _disappear_?

The scary thought was that perhaps it was. Of course there was no way to know, but... the possibility that such a place was known and allowed...

Harry, Elena, and Yulia arrived in Berlin without incident. Their trip had gone well enough, with Yulia all but plastering herself to the window while Elena slept off the efforts of mentally 'adjusting' anyone that asked about them too pointedly. For his part, Harry kept watch, making sure nothing too unexpected happened, even going so far as to ask a spirit to keep an eye open for him. In return, he took down a message to send to his wife. Luckily, this ghost wasn't terribly demanding.

Berlin was apparently the largest city Yulia had ever seen, and it left her quiet and unusually somber, as the three walked along. Curiosity getting the better of him, Harry finally questioned her on it, "What's bothering you? You've not been yourself since we arrived."

"There are no voices," she murmured quietly, hugging herself beneath her mantle. "A few, perhaps... but so quiet."

Of course, Harry realized with a frown. There were very few growing things for her to hear. It must be like... like walking into a graveyard for someone – other than him, of course. "We'll leave soon," he assured her, mind turning toward that task with new vigor. All he needed to do was find that floo connection, and contact the Delacours.

Even Elena didn't seem to be doing so well. "_...something isn't right._"

"Have you ever been in a city this large?" The question made the girl stiffen beside him, and Harry sighed. "Right. You've gone through all these places already.

"What is it, then?"

"_Not sure,_" the pale girl replied, seeming to stall and look about herself in bemusement. "_Hm._"

With a start Harry noted that both Yulia and Elena were starting to wander away. "Hey, what are you doing?"

Both girls turned to look at him in confusion, before walking to his side again. Then, before Harry could begin toward his goal, both seemed to blink and look around, as if forgetting something. Staring, he watched as both seemed to get lost in thought and start to wander again. "Oh, what the hell," he snarled, dashing over and taking their hands. "Stop that!"

It took five minutes to explain to Yulia that he wasn't mad at her, as she tried not to sniffle and show her hurt. Elena he asked to simply look over his memories, and she grew quiet and pensive after. Finally, once he'd decided to try again, she tugged on his sleeve. "_Harry. I don't think we should go._"

"What? Why?"

Taking one of Yulia's hands, the pale girl explained, "_Something is keeping us out, but just Yulia and myself. You don't seem affected. Perhaps it's something specific to you?_"

Magic, Harry realized with a start. "That... would make sense. Why hardly anything about it, anything real, is out there." Considering the way across from them, the narrow corridor that opened up a short ways on, the young boy frowned. He had no idea how long it would take to 'call' Apolline, or for that matter, what else he'd need to do once he made such a call. Leaving the two girls who he so recently worked so hard to free here out in the open in a city he didn't know sat very badly with him. "I'm not happy with leaving you two here."

Reassured by his concern, Yulia smiled faintly, recovering from her misunderstanding quickly. Elena just looked back at him steadily. "_We aren't helpless now. Nor are we trapped, or drugged. I will keep us safe_."

And he knew she could, really. Sighing, Harry had to admit that if one positive thing had come of all the pain and sadness of that place, it was the strength his two friends now had. Not just in their talents, but how they looked at the world.

Perhaps another would lament their loss of innocence, but Harry saw it as a blessing. Without that veneer, the world was more truthful. Ugly, dangerous, and deceitful, but now they could see it clearly. "Alright," he sighed. "I'll try not to be long.

"And I'll see if they have some flowers," he called back, earning a smile from Yulia. Strong as she seemed, he realized, with people she was the most delicate of them.

Harry noted the transition from mundane Berlin to this different feeling portion much like someone would note falling rain. Before it, nothing was of note, then suddenly it was like his skin had electricity tickling at it, and his hair wanted to stand on end. Shaking his head as the sensation passed, he took in the new surroundings, keeping his reactions schooled. It would not do to look a tourist, here.

Magical Berlin, for had no other name for it, ran for some small distance ahead of him, seemingly wedged between other roads and causeways. A small map, tacked up on a board at his left showed an offset rectangle, enclosed by dull gray, and accessed by three entrances.

He was currently entering via Verlor Straße – Lost Street – which made sense considering his companion's reactions... but seemed more to refer to how it was settled behind things, off to the side. Running through the middle was the aptly named Hexestraße, Witch's Street. Small alleys ran here and there, and he looked over his notebook again to see where he'd be going. "24 Hexestraße, second floor," he murmured, and blinked as the map before him flashed.

There, with a jaunty, happily pointing arrow stabbing it in the roof, sat the location he was looking for well-indicated on the map. "Huh," Harry muttered, turning and making his way toward the building. Something didn't sit right with him, here, and he'd just as soon get through with his errand be gone, than linger.

Magic coursed through everything, Harry noted, letting the foreign feel of it wash over him as he stood to the side of the street for a moment. A swell of foot traffic passed him, loud with talk and chatter, as he caught a few conversations.

"...muggles! What were they thinking?"

"Most of Obninsk burned, I heard-"

"-heard about that town outside of Moscow? Veritable plague running rampant. They finally tracked it to some foreign plants. They can't do a thing-"

"...heard the ICW denied this was a magical situation. What rubbish. Like the muggles could..."

Biting his lip, Harry made a note to find the equivalent to a newspaper. Whatever had happened after they escaped Obninsk had not been quiet. Regardless, it was a concern for later – he had to find Number 24.

Unlike most streets, Witch's Street looked more like an alley, with its narrow lane and lack of motor traffic. Regardless, shops and storefronts jutted out from either side, framing the route to with gaudy signs and the occasional hawker. Weaving as fast as he was able, Harry found his destination, an Inn named in a style he recognized from London. The hanging tile proudly proclaiming it the _Angehobener Stein_ – Raised Stone – apparently a play on words, as his translation spell hiccuped over it. The picture was what appeared to be a hand holding up a large stone mug with some kind of hinged cap, with a Henge arch in the background.

Harry quirked a brow, shaking his head, before walking inside. Noisy and busy, he didn't gather any notice for being young, and actually found it hard to get the attention of anyone useful. Finally, he climbed up on a bar stool, which caught the barkeep's eye, "Oh, well you're a little one."

Restraining the urge to roll his eyes, Harry nodded, "Yeah. I need to use a floo. Is there one around here?"

The man hummed, before shrugging, "Yeah, normally it's for customers. Seeing as you're not likely to buy anything... let me get someone to show you over."

Shortly, Harry was proficient enough to use the floo – at least he told himself that. "These people... stick their heads in a fire. To make phone calls," he muttered, once the waitress who had happily helped him moved away, to give him some privacy. Shrugging, he picked up a handful of the floo powder, and got the green flames he needed. "Delacour residence," he murmured quietly, before flinching, and doing as the waitress had.

Spinning disorientation almost had him wrench away from the fire, before a quiet chiming voice he recognized as Gabrielle answered, "Hello? Who is there?"

Restraining the urge to reach up and scratch his head, he replied, "It's Harry Potter."

There was a pause, before the little girl squeaked and he saw her all but slide down in front of him with a huge smile. "Harry! You called!"

Unable to help himself, Harry laughed. "Yes, I told you I would," he replied with a smile. Rather than immediately ask for Apolline, he chatted a moment with the girl, noting how happy she was to speak with him. After all the memories of loneliness he'd taken on, such a small thing didn't bother him. "Gabrielle, is your mother home?" he finally inquired, thinking he'd humored the little blonde enough.

"Oh! She asked me to get her if you called," looking forlorn a moment, she turned to get the older woman.

Her smile returned when he called after, "I won't tell her you kept me. I didn't mind."

As he waited, Harry let his mind drift. How nice it would have been to have someone actually care a little about his happiness when growing up. Shaking off such musings, he noticed Apolline walking swiftly toward the hearth. "Mr. Potter, it's nice to hear from you again."

"You as well," he replied politely. "I hate to say this isn't purely a social call, thought."

"Indeed? Then what can we do for you."

Briefly, Harry outlined his concerns, "So, you see, I have no real interest in returning to my muggle relations. That said, I don't have any money, that I know of. You mentioned my parents were magical," biting his lip anxiously, he steeled himself. "I wondered if maybe there was a way to see if they left something for me. With the separation of worlds..."

Apolline nodded slowly, "I see. Yes, I'd imagine they would have left a will. Perhaps it was read, though? Would your muggle relatives know?"

"I doubt it," Harry scoffed. "I don't think they'd be notified, considering."

"As you say," the stately woman allowed, brow quirking. Privately, she made a note at the venom Harry obviously bore those people. How curious. "Well then, the other options... honestly, I'm unsure how to proceed.

"If the will was read, then your Ministry and Gringotts will have records and the appropriate materials," she explained. "The Ministry, for the will itself, and depending on how it was to be handled, perhaps Gringotts will have copies, and what was in question." Pausing, Apolline reached up to bite delicately at a fingernail. "However, if it wasn't read – I doubt this – then it would be sealed at the Ministry."

Sighing, Harry slumped and wracked his brain. "But I don't have any proof it was read." Deciding to go out on a limb, he chanced to explain something that may raise more questions than allow answers. "I remember the night I was left there. At the Dursleys."

"But... you were what? Not even two?"

"Still, I do," he insisted. "Dumbledore just left me there. I didn't have a name for him then... but it was right after they were killed I think. There couldn't have been a reading of a will in that time."

"Curiouser and curiouser," the French witch murmured. "And you are sure these are true memories? Not... wishes? I'm sorry, but you are young-"

Practically growling his words, Harry cut the woman off, "And I'm also the only person to survive being struck with that supposed Killing Curse. Who knows what it did?"

That made the woman blink, and nod once. "As you say. Very well – my husband is somewhat well connected. I think he can inquire discreetly. However..."

Pausing again, she seemed torn by a thought. "However, I would ask a favor of you."

Not just the dead, Harry groused in irritation to himself. "Yes?"

"Dinner. With my daughters. They feel that our last meeting was... abbreviated. And Gabrielle is rather taken with you."

Trying to keep himself from chuckling at the understatement, Harry nonetheless nodded. "That's... actually very welcome. I'd like that. But, before we make plans, I need to tell you about my traveling companions..."

Apolline's brow arched at his hesitation. "So? Your errand was a success?"

"More so than maybe I would have liked," Harry replied vaguely, making the woman laugh quietly. "Where are you – physically? We can maybe get a train-"

Waving off his words, the Delacour woman asked him, "You are in Berlin? Or Paris?"

"Berlin, at the moment. We had just arrived."

Nodding, the woman scratched out a note, then kneeled down beside the hearth. "At the floo I gave you then – The Raised Stone. I'll come through. Let the patron there know. And, Harry?"

Come through? What? "Uh, yes?"

"You may want to step back."

–

Having had no real exposure to magic, barely his own hesitant practicing and the brief, if confusing, view of Magical Berlin, Harry was utterly unprepared when the elder Delacour appeared in front of him, out of the fireplace a few minutes later. "That," she noted, dusting off her robes, "Is a very long trip. Perhaps a portkey next time..."

Without much pause, she slumped into a chair and took a bracing drink that the barkeep had brought out, when Harry explained what was going on. "Mrs. Delacour," the man greeted, and some gold coins exchanged hands. "Pleasure to see you again."

"You as well, Kurt," the woman replied after regaining her wind. "I trust I won't need to worry on breaking international floo regulations...?"

Snorting, the man Harry now knew as Kurt shook his head. "No. Not from us at least. With all the ICW pushing for more lax borders, you know how it is."

Harry could relate, in a way. For the most part, outside of his crossing from the UK to France, he'd not been bothered for his passport. Only when crossing to Russia did they have him present it again.

"Indeed," the woman replied, standing again. "Well, I think my companion has kept his company waiting long enough. Shall we go?"

Noticing the distinct lack of her use of his name, Harry nodded silently, leading her out of the inn and down the street some distance before speaking again. "Unlike you and your daughters, he didn't recognize me."

"Oh, Kurt did I think. He's just good about keeping his business private, and the business of those he caters to." Apolline's words startled him, and for a moment, all Harry could do was peer around, wondering who else knew it was him, and what kind of problems that would cause. Apparently his sudden shift in demeanor caught her attention, "Relax. Here, you are known, if not well known. Frankly, someone saying they saw you here would be written off as imagination."

Harry let some of his tension go at that, but still kept a wary eye on those around him. "Alright," he replied, before pausing near the map close to the exit back to mundane Berlin. "Also... I should warn you."

That brought the woman up, her eyes narrowing slightly. "Warn me? Of what?"

Cursing his wording, Harry nonetheless continued, "My companions. They aren't... normal.

"I briefly mentioned Sergei's – the ghost's – daughter?" Apolline nodded, recalling his tale. "Well. I found her. I found the people who took her, and... hm. It... they." Flustered and irritated, Harry leaned against the wall, letting his head bang against the bricks dully. "They did some horrible things to her. To everyone there."

There was a chill that ran down Apolline's spine, as the way Harry's voice went hollow and empty when he mentioned that. "Is she... alright? Does she need a doctor?"

Shaking his head, then shrugging, Harry looked up and tilted his head, when the older woman took a slight, startled breath at the look in his eyes. "She won't ever really be alright. They did things that no child should have to deal with, to her. My other friend," and he smiled slightly at using that word, realizing it was true, "Yulia... she suffered as well. But she's managing. They both are.

"Just... don't overreact. And try to be calm."

She could not have imagined a more foreboding way to say such things. As they walked, she imagined horrible things, and the way he spoke, she was almost cross when they came upon two very slight, wary, and hesitant young girls. They didn't seem too badly off, not as far as Harry had tried to warn her of. True, they were both smaller than healthy, and could use some extra food at meals for a while, but they seemed normal enough.

She amended that, when the girl with the large white hat looked up, and she saw the deep black eyes that regarded her in turn. "These are your companions, Harry?"

Nodding, the dark haired boy introduced them. "Apolline Delacour, this is Elena Morozova," he indicated the pale girl with the disturbing stare, "and Yulia..."

The young blonde girl with another pair of strange eyes saved him by chiming in with a sing-song lilt, "Dvorakova."

Nodding a small apology, Elena gently reminded him that Yulia actually didn't know her last name anymore – she just picked one she liked. That reassured him a bit, but he still felt rude having never asked. "Elena, Yulia, Apolline is like me. She's a witch."

Wincing slightly at his indiscretion, Apolline tried to stifle her immediate urge to scold the boy. "It's a pleasure to meet you both."

She startled badly, when a voice whispered from nowhere, "_Likewise. Thank you for helping Harry._"

Her confusion only compounded when the other girl, a few inches taller than Harry and the disquieting Elena, looked to Harry, who nodded. She then loosed her slight huddle, where her arms had been clasped around one another under her little half-cape.

Apolline tried not to stare at the girl's arms, but could not help herself. It was a near thing, that she even noted the girl raising one to her, "Hello."

Nervously, she took that hand for a brief moment, wondering at the softness of it. For all the world they looked to be a bundle of leaves and branches, twined up and made to look like a mimicry of human limbs.

"Can we go somewhere private? I think I have a lot of explaining to do," Harry pointed out, perhaps somewhat belatedly.

–


	10. Trial of Persephone

–

The Trial of Persephone

–

"Amazing. I had no idea..."

"Personally, I think it's better that way," Harry pointed out, indicating his two companions, who sat wide-eyed and entranced by the hotel's television. Apolline had ushered them into a nearby lobby, then pulled out her wand to cast a few charms. Harry had watched intently, memorizing her words and movements, hungry for anything he could glean of magic now that he knew of it openly. She started at his sudden vehemence, however.

"People knowing about them is what started this, after all," he explained. "Muggles – I will never get used to that – always have issues with things that are different, or special. I don't understand..." Shrugging, he sighed, looking over at the two young girls lazing on the lobby couch. "I just know that no one deserved what they went through."

Nodding faintly, the blonde woman looked at Yulia, and cringed visibly. "So... they..."

"Cut out Elena's tongue, to force her to speak with her mind. First though, they did something..." looking back again, he met the same girl's eyes, and Apolline shivered at the spike of hatred she felt suddenly emanate from Harry. Strangely, Elena showed nothing at all, remaining her typically, she had come to realize, blank self. Harry continued, turning back to her with his eyes darkened by emotion, "First, they did something with her mind. She remembers being strapped into a chair, and the grinding of saws on the back of head. Since that day, she's not been able to deal with light well. Something they did damaged her eyes."

Feeling suddenly somewhat ill, Apolline fished a calming draught from her purse. "I... see. Is that why her eyes...?"

"The black? Yes. Well, that's her guess," he amended. The older woman started when a bottle of water floated out of Harry's bag, and settled in the girl's lap. "Originally she could maybe read a little emotion. Move small things. Now... I don't know. She's been trying to keep whatever she could do away from them. She was afraid they'd continue to take things from her, to push her if she became... interesting."

"She told you this," the woman asked faintly.

Shaking his head, Harry laughed mirthlessly. "No. Her version of a hello, thanks to the drugs they had her soaked in, was a fast-forward, first person review of her life. I got to be Elena, from when she was taken, to the day I arrived there."

Shivering, Apolline took up her own water. "That's-"

"Nothing, compared to what they had done," the boy cut her off, eyes dangerously sharp. "They gassed, cut, starved, burned, drowned... hundreds dead. Yulia was on Elena's hall," he mentioned, diverting his anger, though only slightly. Hearing her name the girl in question stood and came over, wrapping her arms around Harry's shoulders, to which he leaned back and sighed.

She could not have done the same, Apolline realized with a little shame.

"Yulia is very talented. Plants listen to her, more really. I don't know details so much as with Elena."

"They are my friends," the girl replied in a quiet voice, that had a distinct lilt. She was glad of her own translation spell, for as talented as she was with foreign languages, Apolline hadn't a clue with Russian dialects. She did find it curious that Harry was speaking it, and not as she could tell, with a spell of his own. "They speak to me. Listen to me. Ask me things, sometimes."

"When I was sneaking through," Harry explained, running a hand along Yulia's arm much to her seeming pleasure, "I saw what she meant. There was a... an explosion of plant life. All outside her wall. They put a concrete barrier in place, but they tried to dig under, upset it with roots.

"I saw trees as large as my leg grow in seconds," Harry murmured, an awed expression on his face. "All just because she was awake, and unhappy."

Nodding sadly, Yulia retreated a few steps, raising her arms. "They tried to help. Every time they let me wake, they wanted me to do more. First it was just make small things grow, and I did – I wanted them to be happy, to let me go.

"They'd never let me go," she hissed, a sudden change in tone. The leaves on her arms unfurled with a snap, revealing gnarled bark that grew dripping, wicked thorns. Apolline drew back, as Elena and Harry both stood to calm the girl. "And always they died. Screaming. Calling to help me, then for me to help – but they made me sleep. Made me weak, so all I could do was _hear_ and _cry_. Always wanting more. Make this move. This tree – make it die. I hated all their demands." Bark creaked, as those limbs lost all semblance of humanity, looking more like cruel lashes by the moment. "Then, they forced me to do things with them. 'Don't use your hands,' they'd scream. I had hands, though." Tilting her head, she raised those limbs. "I have hands, again."

Harry resolutely stood before the girl, as she took a step toward Delacour who backed up nervously. She had enough experience with magical plants to know that nothing good could come of the girl's thorns, "Yulia," he coaxed, voice low, "She's a friend. A friend. It's ok... calm down. I trust her."

It seemed to reach the girl, as the thorns on her arms dulled, spinning, then flowering into small, delicate violet bundles, which the leaves that made up her arms slowly concealed. "Friend? Hmm. Perhaps," she murmured, looking up at Apolline fully for the first time. The Delacour woman had never seen irises that bloody shade before. "But if you try to _take_," the word was said with obvious threat, and Apolline shook her head quickly to deny such intent. "If you take from us, then I will take from you."

Apolline sat again, as Harry and Elena settled Yulia back on the couch. She was very glad of her warding charms then – the blonde child had no concept of subtlety, or how strange she would appear. But, she admitted privately, considering what they had been through, would she be any better?

Sitting tiredly at the table again, Harry rested his head in his hands. "They're so angry still. I can tell. Elena... she may look calm, but it's all just locked away with her."

"How so?"

Considering what to say, Harry sighed. "They broke everyone that came there. Some they hurt, some they found ways to undo them, piece by piece. Elena they locked in a dark room – totally sealed. No light at all," Harry's knuckles whitened, as he gripped the table. "Weeks. They wouldn't even let her be awake to be fed through a tube. All she knew was the Dark. Till it broke her. She'd do anything to get out of it.

"All they wanted was for her to show them what she could do. After the Dark, they used medicines, drugs. After she showed them some of what she could do, they did something to her mind, she lost a lot of her control – but she got powerful. Elena pulled the ceiling down on them, for their mistake."

Harry looked over at the girl in question with a sad smile. She returned his gaze impassively, but Apolline knew there was a conversation there, silent and private. "There's a part of Elena that she locked away. Her rage. I think they... programmed it that way. She killed a lot of them, before they managed it."

Apolline was shocked. "Killed? She's so young."

Shrugging, Harry dismissed her argument out of hand. Apolline was struck by the sudden wonder at if _he_ had killed, then. "She could see what they were doing to others. What they wanted from her, what they'd do to get it. Eventually, she was only allowed awake long enough to test, and even then the drugs kept her complacent."

"So. I suppose you can understand, with all the things they've gone through why I'm hesitant to leave them."

Seeing what he meant, the elder Delacour nodded. "You realized the separation between our world and the muggle one, and want them exempted."

Harry spared her a slight smile. "Elena has no one else. I don't _trust_ anyone else," he amended. "If she tried to go out in the world as she is... well. Things would only get worse. Yulia is even less able to go back to how she was," the young boy admitted bitterly. "All the death she heard, over and over did something to her. You see how defensive she is? That's... minor."

"They're both so young," Apolline whispered, looking over to where the two girls leaned on one another. There was little indication Elena cared about Yulia's strange limbs, as she leaned her shock-white haired head on the taller girl's shoulder. Yulia, disconcertingly, seemed to be singing a little tuneless song. Apolline noted the small houseplants on the other side of the room faintly swaying in time. "And you seem even more jaded now, than when I last saw you."

Taking her observation in stride, Harry frowned. "I've... spoken too freely, hoping you'd understand. It wouldn't be right not to explain my own reasons, after airing all their own ghosts." Something in his words amused Harry, and he laughed quietly.

"Well. You know now that I wasn't kidding, talking about Sergei." Heaving a breath, Harry looked out at the people walking down the street, his eyes too shadowed, too old for such a young boy. "I saw them. All of them. The children that died there."

There had been a vain hope that he had escaped the touch of anything that the two girls who accompanied him had experienced, but that one declaration erased it brutally from Apolline's mind. "I'm... sorry, Harry."

"They were so... _evil_. I never understood that idea until I was there," shaking his head hard, Harry clenched his hands at his side, tears leaking out of angry eyes. "They all came to me. Gave me the strength to set those left free."

Something in his words both intrigued and warned her curiosity away. Rather than tread that dangerous path, she fixed on another question, "So, you freed others? Wait – the news... was this place in Obninsk?" His grim smile was answer enough. "Oh my. That's been in the news both mundane and magical recently. Supposedly the ICW declared it a breach of the Statutes, then had to turn around and deny and undo that ruling after investigating. Muggle Ministries were up in arms, thinking someone had held an illicit Quidditch tournament, and let the festivities get out of hand. No one knows what happened, still."

Harry discarded everything she said, other than one point. "Wait. Normal governments know about wizards?"

Apolline made a balancing motion with her hands. "Some, on the highest levels. In the Americas they handle things differently. Here, typically, only the top tiers know about one another."

That settled and brought up more of Harry's questions. At least, superficially. Who knows how such facilities begin, who funds them, and how such things remain unknown. After all, apparently magic and the magical community Apolline talked of hid beside the mundane. Perhaps this was similar? A fire deep inside him banked itself for a moment, seeing no other immediate outlets for the vengeance he felt still had yet to be satisfied. Yet. "I guess in the magical world would be the best place for them to hide, then."

Considering that, Apolline had to nod. "They wouldn't stand out quite so much, truly. Even Yulia's circumstances would be merely curious, rather than..."

"Cataclysmic?"

"Yes, quite," she admitted. Given, she had little experience with muggle sensibilities, but if they reacted as strongly to the young girls as they tended to, with other things that appeared to be magic, then yes. That word would suit rather well. "Very well. I understand your situation.

"What shall we do about your own questions, then?"

It took Harry a handful of moments to realize what she was speaking of. "Oh. You said Mr. Delacour would be able to look into it?"

Nodding, Apolline looked to the two young girls, napping on the couch. "You are welcome to come to our home, as long as you think Yulia will be calm."

"Elena and I will be able to keep her settled," Harry assured, before reconsidering. "Though, if we can limit who comes in contact with her, that would be best."

Agreeing with that whole-heartedly, the blonde woman thought on what would need to be done. "We have enough rooms, so that she need not see anyone she would rather not," the woman noted idly. "I think I have a plan. It may take some small time, but subtlety cannot be rushed.

"And it will give my daughters ample chance to monopolize you, which will compensate me quite nicely, I think." It would also give her time to see what this young boy, the real Harry Potter was. Apolline had already needed to readjust her preconceptions twice – what other surprises would the young Boy-Who-Lived offer?

–

He would never admit it, but Harry felt almost as much hate for portkeys as he had started to feel for most adults. Seeing a quarter ton of floating rock rip itself from the ground, and what appeared to be a ready-made jungle leap up in response to the girls' discomfort, he assumed they weren't fond of it either.

Still, it wouldn't do for Apolline to be killed. "Wait! Calm down." Trees and stones stopped their manic threats. "Are those always so... rough?"

Apolline, to her credit, only stared wide-eyed at the things those two children had done after their rough landings. Faintly, she replied, "Yes."

"Warn us, next time. We don't deal well with surprises."

Wit intact regardless, the French witch only quirked a brow, "Really? I would hate to see 'dealing badly', then."

Nonplussed, Harry turned a flat stare at the woman. "Yes. You would."

Whatever dwelled behind those emerald eyes quelled the remaining humor Apolline had held in check. "Come," she beckoned, clinging to a change of topic greedily. She would not be intimidated by a small boy, the woman scolded herself. "The Manor is just beyond the gatehouse."

And yet, she was. More than that, she was frightened half to death not only of him, but of his companions. Magic she understood – she was a witch wasn't she? Yet, here stood two young girls who needed neither wand not word to command powers she'd never seen. Oh, magic could lift things, it could be bent to read minds, or send messages, but what this Elena did seemed... entirely too easy. Yulia's talents, so obviously displayed almost as they landed, were just as impressive if even more worrisome, as they controlled living things. So far, the girl had only been in contact with muggle plants she assumed. What would she do with some of the near-intelligent magical ones?

Above and beyond power, however, she was frightened of their madness – and it was blazingly clear that Harry hadn't escaped the ordeal of their rescue unscathed. Before, when she had met the boy in Paris, Apolline had been taken aback by Harry's aloof, almost impersonal manner. He was obviously intelligent, inquisitive, and focused. There were no outbursts, no sputtered demands of 'what!?' or the like as they explained things to him, briefly as they could.

What he lacked, however, was emotion. Or rather, Apolline realized after replaying their conversation in Paris, compassion. Harry's goals were where his focus lay, and beyond that -

"_Nothing matters,_" the voice of Elena intruded into her thoughts. "_He has compassion. It is just sparingly spent._"

Panic, if hidden well, washed over the Delacour woman.

Elena's voice, as it was, all but dripped sarcasm. "_Are those 'weak' muggles your culture teaches you about becoming something of a worry, then? Do Yulia and I frighten you?_" She had no need to nod – the girl knew her, on a level that left Apolline feeling dirty and violated. Apolline stifled a shiver, almost feeling the satisfaction rolling off the pale child. "_Harry is important to us. He's the only person who will understand what happened._"

"Why only him?" The woman thought, silently. She recalled what he had explained... did it mean nothing, then?

"_Because, even though he was a child, he did more than anyone else. Families left us. Were killed. Hundreds disappearing in the night. I know more of it than he does – I lived there. Picked at their minds once they made me what I am._

"_I know who and what allowed this. Those distant and lofty people who think they know best. I trust him because he's a child. Because he's like me. Yulia trusts him because he smiles at her, and isn't lying. Because he'll touch her, and not flinch away. But, as I said, you have no reason to worry._"

She couldn't believe that it was the same girl speaking to her thus, who seemed to be listening to Harry talk about how huge and beautiful her home was – and look at the orchards! Yulia was all but hopping in excitement. "_I am not lying,_" Elena asserted. "_Worrying isn't something you should waste time on. For the moment, Harry trusts you, because you are kind. I suggest you continue this._"

The message was clear. If Apolline entertained some plot to use or deceive Harry, then Elena would know. The politician within her balked at going into a situation with a visible hand, and no backup or way out, but she quelled it brutally. Now that these... children... were in her home, she could do nothing to them. Not that she intended to, but-

"_Oh, you could. I see what would happen – and what you would do,_" the voice came again, betraying the woman even in her idle thoughts. "_You could hurt us. Maybe kill us. Maybe_.

"_But I know all about those things now. Perhaps I can't do anything to stop your magic, but I know where your daughters are. Where your husband is. And now? So do Harry, and Yulia._"

"Enough," Apolline thought back with a wrench of her mind. "Children," she called, bringing the small troupe to a halt. Turning her gaze to Elena, the elder Delacour's gaze darkened, "I will not be threatened in my own home. Regardless of your circumstances, I _will not_."

Black eyes looked back up from below a wide white hat unrepentantly. "_We will not be treated like that again._"

Ire rankled, the older witch ground out a growl that would have her husband raising a brow. "You obviously saw my intent when you looked through my mind as if you were welcome there. If I had any ill notions toward you all, why are you still here?

"Truly, if you want to come here to threaten us, then perhaps you and Harry can find your help elsewhere."

At that, Harry shot the slight girl a frown, and stepped forward to meet her eyes. It was obvious then that not only was Elena's dialog with her shared with her companions, but likely her own reactions as well. Apolline didn't know how that made her feel, to be honest. "She has a point Elena. Calm down."

"_But, Harry-_"

The young boy's hand made a cutting motion, "No. We need help. We can't do this on our own, and though I know it bothers you to rely on people we don't know, I don't have a choice." Silently, he added, "_It won't always be so. You saw her, clearly?_"

"_Yes Harry,_" the pale girl added, head bowed. Toeing the ground slightly, she looked up, a shimmer of tears causing her eyes to look even larger. "_I'm sorry, please don't be mad. It's just... I'm not used to people, anymore. Not used to them being anything but cruel._"

Pulling the girl into a hug, Harry nodded against her shoulder. "_None of us are really. I was just getting used to the idea when I found you two_." To Yulia, he beckoned and the blonde happily joined in the hug, happy to share warmth and always eager for the acceptance of her two companions.

After a few moments, the youth looked up at the waiting witch, "I think we're sorted out, now. It's been a very hard few days, and none of us are very good at being people, I suppose."

Apolline could readily sympathize, and hated to be so terse with these hurt children, but she would not place them before her own family. "I understand, I do. But do keep in mind, I am trying to help. I may want to appease my children with Harry's presence somewhat, and may ask questions, but I don't mean you any harm."

The three children shared pointed looks, and resumed their loose following of the blonde witch. "I'm sorry," Harry offered again.

Reaching out, the Veela woman ruffled his hair. "It'll get better. Just trust people a bit more." Sighing, she shrugged slightly. "And if you can't, have Elena look through them. I couldn't sense her at all till she made herself obvious."

Harry eagerly filed that admission away, taking much from the comment. Apparently, if he wasn't mistaken, there were magical ways to do what Elena did, and wizards could detect them. That was interesting... particularly that Elena could avoid those tripwires, at least with Apolline.

It was something to keep in mind.

–

As it turned out, the Delacour children and their magic were the cementing point between them all. Seeing that Apolline's daughters were treated so well despite their gifts gave them hope, of a fashion. Perhaps it would have been much different, had one of them proven non-magical, but as chance would have it, Harry's faith would be somewhat rekindled by their kindness. Regardless, wariness never left them. A few days of kindness could not so easily undo years of pain.

"She's out in the vineyards?"

Elena regarded Harry, brushing against his mind with the sense of a smile. Her expression however didn't stray from her stoic mask, "_Yulia really enjoys playing with Gabrielle there. I think she feels more at home, surrounded by so many growing things._"

Harry nodded, thinking not for the first time that it was a very good thing that he contacted the French family. Fleur had taken to spending a lot of time with them, as she had few friends of her own her age. Those at her school seemed somewhat biased by her heritage, something Harry didn't understand.

"What do you think of Karkaroff's offer?"

"_I will worry for Yulia,_" Elena replied after a small pause. "_But I think it may be for the best, if what we have been told is true_."

Tapping his fingers against the trellis he leaned against, Harry peered into his companion's dark eyes. "And is it?"

Nodding, the pale girl turned, following the sound of laughter rising from the orchards. "_As far as those we've spoken to know at least._" Some distance into the acres of grape vines and tended orchards, they could see twin heads of blonde running about. "_Do you think they will treat her well, when we're so far away?_"

"We can trust them," the young wizard assured. "They've done nothing but help us so far. And it's only for part of the year, and when she isn't visiting. I just don't think she'd be as happy with the ice and snow as us."

"_As you say, Harry_."

The last month at the Delacour home had been informative, among other things. After some coaxing from Harry, Elena and Yulia had both been treated by a doctor – Apolline called the woman a healer – and prescribed a number of treatments. Despite the healer's insistence that they all go to a hospital, however, none of them would do so. Nutrients and some small medicines for bumps and scrapes were limit.

Yulia absolutely refused to 'relinquish' her control on the plants that had become a part of her. According to Elena's eavesdropping, it seemed those spikes they'd seen before had become entwined with what remained of the bones in Yulia's shoulders, and could not be removed by force, without doing even more damage now. Not that she or Harry would allow that, and they made that imminently clear to the healer, regardless of her opinion on things.

Elena refused to tell Harry about her own diagnosis, however, much to his irritation.

Progress on Harry's front had gone relatively well, despite a few initial bumps. As it turned out, he had not been missed or noted missing, which didn't surprise him much. It had taken less than a week to make the trek from Surrey to Obninsk and then back to France. Considering the animosity between himself and the Dursleys, a lack of reaction on their part wasn't shocking. On the suggestion of Jean-Claude, Fleur's father and husband to Apolline, an inquiry was started by his school, thanks to a little palm greasing and a month's free lease of a townhouse at Cannes.

On the other hand, the reaction from a man with a familiar name had been the cause of some interest, and the source of their current conversation. Dumbledore as it turned out, noticed his absence without any help from the Dursleys. To his amusement, Harry alone found this strange, and his resulting paranoia brought up a number of questions it seemed no one else thought to ask.

First and foremost among them – why?

He had recalled Fleur's point, that he was after all the vanquisher of You-Know-Who, the Boy-Who-Lived. Harry's question however was what the wizard wanted with him now, after years without any kind of contact, that would suddenly catch his attention. If the old man cared so much, where had he been? Something didn't feel right.

How could he turn this his way...

Igor Karkaroff offered the first glimpse into what the man seek, during a chance meeting between the Delacours, Fleur's headmistress, and a 'mistake' in timing that lead to Harry's somewhat secret escape being exposed.

–

AN: And now, everything changes. Next chapter, obligatory Dumbledore angst, and setting the stage. Not terribly exciting – but needful. More fun after.


	11. All the Kings of Hell

–

All the Kings of Hell

–

"Dear god woman, do you know who that is?" Harry really hoped that the person who'd suggested he speak with the Durmstrang headmaster wasn't also a complete idiot, as well as being dead.

As Apolline let her face fall into her hands with a resigned sound, her companions turned to where the somewhat high-strung man Harry had been told was named Igor Karkaroff was pointing.

It wasn't a large meeting, being a yearly event mainly between Beauxbatons and Durmstrang to discuss attendance, voice woes about budgets, gloat about their students, and essentially gossip like the coworkers they tried to be. That in mind, Harry didn't worry on it much considering one woman was Fleur's headmistress, whom she regarded highly, and the other a man the spirit he'd spoken to insisted could help him. Beside them, their attendants stood or sat, taking notes when needed or fetching things, and then of course there was the Delacour host staff. It was cozy, but not crowded.

Harry's eyes lighted on the Durmstrang headmaster, and he wondered at the spirit's assurances. How that man could assist him he had little idea, but the dead have little else to do but spy on and harass the living, and recent conversations revolving around Dumbledore and his odd motivations had been noted.

The dead man, a former worker in the Delacour vineyards where Yulia played while he plotted, spoke of meetings where Apolline and sometimes Jean-Claude would sit and talk with other teachers. Headmasters, of other schools. A meeting where Dumbledore was never present. It had potential, Harry admitted, and so now he had a favor to do. Hopefully, it wouldn't be something too irritating.

Harry sketched a slight bow, taking Elena's hand and pulling her forward with him. "Good afternoon."

"You're Harry Potter," the sharp-faced man accused, his eyes blinking rapidly, as if to clear something that would distort his sight.

At Harry's side, Elena's hand tightened in his own, "_Oh... this should prove interesting..._"

Over the short time Elena had been free, the two of them had shared quite a lot, and one thing Harry had proven adept at was this. All the information Elena drew from Karkaroff, she then fed him. Such an act left her unable to do much, stationary and focused, but Harry suffered little. He wondered if perhaps the events in Obninsk had opened up the channel of his mind, allowing for such things to be less traumatic, but in truth he couldn't say for sure. There certainly were no books about those that spoke with the dead as he did, or explained Elena's unique talents. Taking what she offered, Harry grinned slightly at Karkaroff's observation. "I am. Who may you be?"

That stilted introduction lead to a conversation that even Apolline had to raise a brow at, once some polite chatter and discussion of schools had passed. She did not miss Elena's presence, and wondered precisely what kind of monster she'd let loose against her colleagues.

"_We are at least, tidy monsters,_" the girl pointed out to her, to which the Delacour matriarch answered with a mental swat of a hand and sigh.

"_You shamelessly abuse this, you know,_" Apolline thought in that odd way she knew that Elena would pick up on, pointing her attention and focusing slightly. It made one forget sometimes that not everyone could answer in such a way, being around the child so often.

More than once, she found herself in an odd silent group conversation over breakfast, as Elena simply pooled everyone's threads of thought together. It was certainly a unique experience. Elena's only reply was a quiet, "_It is who and what I am._" Apolline knew better than to question that.

"I take it you'll be attending Hogwarts, Mr. Potter?" Olympe Maxine queried during a break in the two headmaster's conversation regarding their yearly budgets. It was a common topic of irritation, and any distraction was welcome. Studying the young boy before her for a moment, Maxine wondered how it came to be that Harry Potter ended up in not only France, but the home of some of her closest acquaintances as well. That thought in mind, she followed her previous question quickly with another, "Though I do wonder how it is you know my associate Madame Delacour and her charges."

He didn't have to fake the smile that preceded his reply, "To your last question, Madame Delacour helped me when I needed it, and only asked I spend some time with her daughters in repayment. I trust her, and besides that, we get along well with her, Gabrielle, and Fleur." There was no need to mention Yulia to these people, so he didn't. Luckily, no one had asked much of Elena he couldn't deflect, as the slight girl pretended to doze on the couch nearby. Apolline straitened slightly at his words, a smile gracing her lips. He meant all that he said about her, so didn't mind being flattering. After all, she had been terribly helpful, for no more reason than she felt it was the right thing to do

"As for attending Hogwarts... frankly? I'd rather not." Apolline's smile tightened, and she shot Harry a warning look, as if to ask if he had planned this little interruption. Not wanting to show his hand yet, he only smiled slightly more.

"Really?" Igor asked, looking interested again in their conversation as opposed to his wine. "Why is that?"

"_He is the most likely to be sympathetic to you, of the two,_" Elena sent the young wizard, affirming his own suspicions. Perhaps he would do a second favor for that spirit if things played out well enough.

Harry regarded the man levelly, before answering, "He's paying way too much attention to me. Too much for my tastes, considering he was the one who separated me from my heritage by placing me with hateful muggles, rather than a wizarding family after my parent's death."

Maxine leaned forward, including herself in their conversation again, "But you are _le Survivant_. You are a fixture in British wizarding homes. You think that does not deserve some attention?"

"Why now, then?" Harry asked. This was a question he truly did want answered, but didn't think these people could. Regardless, it suited him well enough to prove he _had_ questions. "Why only look for me when I'm not where he put me, and leave me alone for so long? Why keep magic and all my heritage from me?" Standing, Harry cursed and paced for a moment, after moving Elena's 'sleeping' form to rest against the couch's wide back. "Do you know I thought my parents died in a car crash? Drunks? I knew nothing!"

Shock played over the faces of the headmasters, while Apolline nodded nearby. Cunning boy... if she didn't back him up here, the two headmasters would wonder what it was she was hiding, after Harry threw the word trust about so easily. Still, it was nicely played, and she had no reason not to do her part. "It is true. When I met him earlier in this year, he had no idea he was a wizard, even. That there were schools, or his own history. Can you imagine? What was Dumbledore thinking?"

"Boy, you mean to say that you've never been approached by solicitors for your family?"

"Would they approach muggles?" Harry questioned, getting a negative in reply. "That'd be why, I imagine."

Karkaroff leaned back, taking a long draw from his wine glass, humming thoughtfully. "If you are registered as I expect with the Hogwarts Ledger, then as an orphan of a known family with no named magical guardians, Dumbledore would be responsible for your magical welfare." Sitting down his glass perhaps a bit too roughly, the man grunted. "That means informing you of your rights, easing you into wizarding society, and acting as go-between for such things, or assigning someone to do so." Shaking his head, the stern looking man considered his wine thoughtfully. "Outrageous. Keeping such things from a young boy."

"Perhaps he has his reasons," Maxine made to interrupt, but Igor barked a derisive laugh.

"Reasons? Of course he does. That old goat always has an agenda. He _is_ an agenda, as much as he seems to have given over to his political endeavors." Expression sour, Karkaroff shook his head. "Even you, Maxine, have to admit this smells of plot."

Sighing, the large woman nodded. "Yes. Something isn't right. I would never do something like that to one of my students, much less place them purposefully with a family that hates magic, as Mr. Potter describes. For a muggleborn, it isn't such an issue – no history to impart – but to one with an established family? To willfully deny him his history is unthinkable."

"_It's amazing how much work you save yourself, letting them convince themselves, isn't it, Harry?_"

The Boy-Who-Lived regarded his 'sleeping' companion with a slight smile. "_You are far too good at this,_" he sent the pale girl.

He could feel the contentment at his complement rolling off Elena, before she replied, "_It is what I can do to help. I am happy to._"

To the room at large, Harry was not nearly as amused, or seemingly pleased, "So, you think you know why Dumbledore would be sticking his nose into things, so long after the war? Perhaps he simply wants me to attend Hogwarts very badly, so he limited me...?"

Karkaroff went very quiet for a moment, before shaking his head. "No. The old idealist, unless he's gone senile, has an agenda. He always has an agenda," the headmaster pointed out again with some rancor. "I used to be like him, till I got the unique opportunity to see the error in my ways, and how they endangered my rather fond hobby of breathing."

Harry tilted his head, confused, until by Elena's silent prompting he understood. "Ah, I see."

Then, much to Apolline's horror, conversation turned decidedly sour, for polite company.

"You are a former Death Eater?"

Everything went very quiet then, as Igor stared daggers at the small boy, and his knowing smile. "Yes. What of it?"

"Was that what endangered your hobby?"

The corner of Igor's mouth quirked slightly, before the man boomed out a laugh. "More than you know, boy. More than you know. Now, I'm no fool – what brings you to interrupt a meeting I'm sure Madame Delacour has warned you off barging into. No more games, or prying. We speak clearly."

Nodding, Harry did just that. "Dumbledore has me on his records, as you've said, I can only assume. That means I'm slated to attend Hogwarts. I don't want to. I don't trust him."

"Dear boy, why not?" Harry looked to the impressively large woman, not in girth but just overall, who sat beside Apolline across from the hatchet-faced visage of Karkaroff. "He is a legend, a hero. Why would you distrust such a man? I understand your worries, but this is Albus Dumbledore."

"_You were right,_" he offered Elena silently, who mimicked waking with a catlike stretch and yawn. "_She wouldn't have been a good choice._" Leaning back, Harry peaked his fingers, as Elena's hand strayed to his shoulder, a comforting coolness. Thinking honestly about Dumbledore, on a personal level he could care less about the man, other than for one shining, damning memory. It was that man that set him aside, on a doorstep in the cold of late fall, trusting in people he'd never met or known to care for him. For that one act and all that resulted from it, he would never forgive the man named Dumbledore. He was lilkrThose thoughts well in mind, Harry replied to Maxine's question, "Yet despite that, he is the one who is directly responsible for me being ignorant, abused, and lost to my own world."

The two headmasters shared a look, while Apolline's gaze was intense. "Harry," the woman prompted, "I hope you know what you're doing."

Shrugging, the young wizard had to agree. "Me too. After all, I'm trying to talk someone who worked for the madman who killed my parents into letting me attend his school."

After that statement, the only remaining arguments revolved around why he'd choose Durmstrang over Beauxbatons. "As much as I like being around Fleur," Harry noted, shooting Apolline an apologetic glance, "I get the feeling, Madame Maxine that Paris may be too accessible to Dumbledore. He'd find a way to bring me back," it was only a half truth, but it would do. Elena warned him off Beauxbatons primarily because he would be too close to the Delacours and the large woman's loyalties seemed to point Dumbledore's way more than was comfortable. Not that he had a problem with Apolline's family, but if they were going to draw lines in the sand, best to do so away from home ground, which all three children had began thinking the Delacour residence as.

Nodding and making a considering sound, Maxine frowned. "Perhaps. And we are closer to the southern coast, in truth, but that means little." Indicating her peer, she continued, "Igor, however, keeps his school bound in oaths and ice. If you attend Durmstrang, you will be well hidden, if that is your wish."

Nodding distractedly, Harry agreed. In truth, he was almost as worried about what Elena was telling him about Igor as he was of what Dumbledore's actions – or in his case, inaction – had indicated. Igor was a shrewd man, she assured him, and this opportunity to bring Durmstrang up from the ashes of ignominy after the stigma of being Grindelwald's previous school piqued his interest greatly. He would have to be very careful of the man's plots.

What surprised him, however, was the lack of any desire for retribution from Karkaroff, something Elena had immediately probed for after finding in his mind that he was a Death Eater and what it meant. That had cemented his decision, though he would enjoy schooling with Fleur. She was a good friend, once he got to know her, and the fact he and his didn't care about her heritage went a long way toward cementing them in her life.

Back to Karkaroff, Igor had decided some time before the fall of Voldemort to turn his back on that man and his ways. Shadows of the agenda the former Dark Lord pressed still lingered in Karkaroff's mind – Durmstrang didn't offer schooling to muggleborns – but that was his prerogative and a minor issue, really. It wasn't the man's beliefs that horrified Karkaroff however, so much as his methods. Igor was no killer of innocents, and the slaying of children was an abhorrent idea. It explained, as Elena told him, why he turned traitor against those he did.

Harry absorbed it all, as he looked over the room from peaked fingers. Durmstrang was far from perfect, and neither was Beauxbatons, but something in him reached north... Pushing his thoughts on Karkaroff's views to the back of his mind, Harry made his decision. Who was he, to call another on their beliefs?

He'd helped kill an entire research facility full of people, after all. More than anyone else in the room perhaps, Harry understood beliefs, and where they would take someone.

–

_Summer, 1991_

It had not been a good two years, Dumbledore noted with some resignation. A very significant portion of his ill mood was due to a trio of letters, one in a surprisingly neat hand, the other in sharp, terse, mocking tones he'd just as soon relegate to his fireplace. They of course only paraphrased what could be said to be a terrible chain of circumstances, beginning with his own bad judgment in late '81. The last letter he eyed with something akin to frank hate, knowing what it would contain if he were honest with himself.

Picking up the first again, he reread it, hoping that perhaps there was something he missed, but knowing it to be otherwise.

_"To whom it may concern,  
"It pleases me that my previously unknown status as wizard had not escaped your notice, yet due to current circumstances which I find more accommodating, I must refuse your offer for enrollment. To preempt your argument, no, I do not wish to discuss, or alter my situation. You may direct all further inquiries in this vein to my current headmaster and magical guardian – who has proven more than capable.  
"Good day, Harry James Potter."_

Sighing over the letter again, Dumbledore had to admit, this was nowhere in his potential plans, and frankly, it worried him greatly. The young wizards penmanship was neat and precise, not at all what he'd come to expect with the few samples Arabella Figg had provided with the odd procured piece of schoolwork.

Such things told him that the mind behind those words was sharp, and not unaware. Yet, it was obviously Harry's – the hand wasn't too far from previous examples. It was the biting tone that made him wince, and the implication that his own duplicity in things had been seen through, to a degree.

Wearily, Albus took up the second letter, lips drawing into a fine white line.

_"Albus,  
"No doubt you've received my young charge's letter by now. Rest assured, he is in good hands. In fact, you could say he has the support of not just myself and Durmstrang, but France as well if he desired. You may take that however you like.  
"On a less pleasant note, keep your ink-stained hands and ICW seal away from the boy, if you value what esteem your peers hold for you. The legality of his attendance, guardianship, and amazingly enough, **properly appointed family** are ironclad. You dropped the ball, old friend, and this one may prove rather volatile. Would you believe the boy approached me? Irony truly is the spice of life. Enough of this, however.  
"To business, then. Durmstrang is opening its doors to the continent more freely, thanks to some much-needed improvements. I dare-say you may be feeling some more growing room of your own, this and upcoming years. The halls have never been more hallowed, I feel.  
"I also feel it has been too long since we've had a proper tournament, between our esteemed schools. It's been almost two-hundred years since the Triwizard has fallen out of favor. Perhaps it is time we reinstate such a noble enterprise? I have spoken with Maxine, and she is eager to see the flowers of her own labor shine. Perhaps in a few years, we can all judge the fruits of our labors.  
"I'm sure you can read between the lines, old friend.  
"Your colleague, K."_

With a roar, Dumbledore spun and swept his hand out, a wave of magical force ripping the air around him into fierce eddies. Books, now-useless instruments, parchment and portraits alike suffered his wrath, after reading his so-called peer's letter. "Pretentious, sanctimonious, amateurish upstart!"

His outburst cooling his wayward temper, Dumbledore stared down at the letter on his desk in open contempt. "Not satisfied with the Boy-Who-Lived, eh Death Eater? Had to bring up _that_," cursing, the old man sat back down in his chair with a muttered growl.

James Potter's cloak had been one of a few heirlooms that he'd been ordered to relinquish last year, after an inquiry lead to the Potter will being opened and executed. Up till now, he'd been able to delay such an event, claiming his right as Potter's magical guardian.

Now, however, that last feeble handhold on the Hallow was lost. And Igor knew it, and knew it well by all accounts of his letter. "Damn that soulless..."

Snarling out invectives, Dumbledore threw the letter aside. Worse, it seemed that his poor judgments had been aired, in a preemptive defense of Mr. Potter. Never mind that now his withholding of an heirloom would be made public record, and his reasons, but with this final straw of Potter attending _Durmstrang_ of all places, he had to admit, there was nothing left to grasp. Even Salem would have been preferable.

All his troubles could be traced back to the Dursleys, as ironic as it seemed.

Harry had left, and not been reported missing by his muggle relatives. Though he could hide much, Albus was unable by the Ministry and the Statutes, not to mention his own position in the ICW to blatantly change muggle records to mask such blatant negligence. The same blood relatives he'd relied on to protect the boy had barely tolerated his existence, and that horrid environment had been exposed as a massive travesty against the spirit of the Boy-Who-Lived, when news of his status as missing was leaked. Or, more likely, subtly declared.

Shortly after that situation came to light, an order to open the Potter will was issued, and with all his arguments for the Dursleys neatly negated, Dumbledore could do nothing but allow it. His own seal on the will was again damning, after the previous muggle issue so recently uncovered. That seal only existed to prevent the Ministry from interfering, possibly causing the boy's death if things had gone badly and his presence absent to safeguard him. What would have become of Harry if Malfoy had been able to execute the document, with his particular brand of doctoring? Now, that safeguard was little more than another nail in an already heavy coffin.

Guardianship of the boy had been a touchy issue. Luckily no one had inquired too deeply into Black, which Dumbledore had done, fearing such an event after the will was opened. To his shame, the man hadn't received a trial, and for all his impassioned speeches on true justice and forgiveness, that single oversight weighed on him. He could do nothing, however, without looking as if he were still scrambling for some handhold on the Boy-Who-Lived. Justice for Black would have to wait.

The will itself was a known issue, and one he hoped to avoid. Due to its requested opening by a foreign Ministry, he'd managed to name himself representative of Britain's own to attend. Perhaps, in hindsight, that was a mistake. True, he'd also hoped the Dursleys to be better than animals to the child, but this... provisions for Sirius had been made, but stricken due to his status and history. No other listed families were acceptable for various reasons, and the final clause had been put into effect.

Dumbledore could still feel the creeping chill that the pale girl, Harry's muggle companion, had caused in him. Something about that child had not been _right_, and though he was tempted, Albus knew better than to wantonly use his Legillimency in such a situation. More mistakes he could not afford, and frankly, he feared some madness in the child. Seeing such a mind would only cause his own to suffer needlessly. Still, the girl's presence was a shadow compared to Harry's own calculating gaze. Something in the headmaster screamed that he knew what was going on, on a deeper level than the superficial. Beyond that, the surprise upset of the final clause had been quite the coup.

The clause called for the Ministry in which the will had been read – clever Lily, damn her eyes – to appoint a solicitor, to evaluate Harry's own choice for guardianship. Obviously some thought had been put into this, as such a family was ready and waiting to be assessed, with such a sparkling history that one could have expected saints.

It brought to mind many questions and thanks to his own limitations as a British Ministry official, and technically counter to the will's execution thanks to his own seal, he could not question such an arrangement. How did Harry come to know the Delacroix family? A cadet branch of the Delacours, the implication from Karkaroff's letter was clear. Harry had made allies in not only Karkaroff, but with Madame Maxine and the Delacours, apparently. Dumbledore could not even call to fault the somewhat-scandal of Jean-Claude Delacour taking a part-Veela for his wife, as the Delacroix branch had no such stigma. Not that he would personally consider it such, but angles must be considered, in politics.

Due to his orphan status, Dumbledore had held one final ace, which now was lost to him. As the appointed headmaster for the boy's future school, it was his responsibility to see to his magical education and adjustment to their world. More wizarding children than Potter had been given to muggle families, in the stretch of history, so it was an established precedent. Now, sadly, that last hold proved empty.

What tore at Dumbledore more than anything however, wasn't that his assurances were stripped away, so much that the boy had no trust in him. What had he done, to turn Potter so fully from him? There was no maliciousness to Dumbledore's work, he only meant to protect the child from those that would harm him, truly. That the boy was also heir to one of the Hallows was interesting – he had never lost his love of story and myth – but not critical.

Oh, he had his fears that Voldemort would return... it was why he had secured certain favors from a previous friend and coworker in the realm of Alchemy. What would come of that now, without the assurance of Harry Potter there, the one stated in prophecy to counter Voldemort? Could another be the lynchpin in his trap? It was a disturbing thing to think that his plot could turn on him as easily as his good intentions had.

He had lost Harry Potter. Perhaps it would be best to focus on his position as headmaster, rather than his plans for a time. Sighing, Dumbledore sat aside the bauble he'd been toying with on his desk. It was the now-useless ward monitor for Privet Drive. Of course, with Harry abandoning the Dursleys the thing had failed, so now it was little better than a strange glass bulb with a silent silver mechanism inside. He knew better than to look at the location detector, as well. That had failed when the will was opened.

He couldn't just... let go, however. He knew Voldemort was still a threat, and as the only witness to the full prophecy, it fell to him to prepare the boy for when the Dark Lord returned, as he feared.

The bulb fell and shattered on the stone floor of the headmaster's office. What would a Harry Potter, taught in a place like Durmstrang, do to the wizarding world once he found an enemy? There had been enough war, in the last century. Wizarding kind could hardly spare the blood to be spilled for another.

Knowing his mood could hardly get worse, Dumbledore picked up the last letter, bearing the official seal of his own position within the ICW.

_"From the Most August and High Seat, Supreme Mugwump of The International Confederation of Wizards, to one Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore.  
"There are few words that can explain the displeasure and dishonor it requires for the Confederation to meet, for such a task as has been set before me. As the new acting and henceforth, Supreme Mugwump, I am sorrowfully appointed to inform you of the decision to strip from you said title, for infractions and behavior unbecoming the office.  
"It does grant me some happiness to inform you that the Confederation sees in you too much potential to set by the wayside, however. Though we cannot in good faith allow you to hold the High Seat, we would be honored if you would consider taking a place alongside the Peers, as representative for Britain succeeding Tiberius Ogden.  
"We expect a reply within the month, on whether you wish to honor the Confederation with your presence.  
"The High Seat, Alexi Nathan Koenig."_

Dumbledore never realized precisely how gratifying it was to burn official stationary, till that afternoon.

–

By the Black Lake on the grounds of Hogwarts, something not quite a ghost, and not quite alive writhed in indecision, churning the thoughts of a hapless man it rode like a storm frothed the sea.

Life or vengeance? Decisions that needed more than a moment's thought... for now, it would seek the easiest goal.

He longed to spill Potter's blood with his own two hands, not those he currently wore like ill-fitting gloves. One more year would mean little, if by its end, he could be whole and rid of this pale charade. He had already spent a year watching and waiting, after converting the weak-minded fool he now possessed to his cause, but now... now he needed to directly take a hand. No longer would he direct from afar, not with the Stone so close.

"We remain at Hogwarts, servant," the cold, thin voice commanded. "My grace allows Potter some few days to enjoy what remains of his life."

Quirrell shuddered, nodding in acquiescence.

As always, dead eyes watched. For they had no other way to pass the time, than to spy upon and harass the living...

–

AN: And now we return to the fun stuff. Well, next chapter, anyway. For Quirrell timeline, google "Melissa Erin Friedline"


End file.
